BR 125 
.E35 
Copy 1 



Glimpses 

ot the Real 




J A- DBG£ RTO N 




Class ^Bd£&. 



Book. 






Copyright N°_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



GLIMPSES OF 
THE REAL 



BY 



JAMES ARTHUR EDGERTON 

Author of "Voices of the Morning/' "Songs of the 
People" etc. 



r 



$ 



m 



DENVER 

THE REED PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1903 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

JAN 16 1904 

Copyright Entry 

<SW,t// 'Vol 

CLASS? fj XXc. No, 
^ COPY 3 



COPYRIGHT, I9O3 

By JAMES ARTHUR EDGERTON 



PRESS OF 



©tj* 2toh. JJubltaffutg (Eimtpam? 



DENVER 



Note. — The contents of this book originally 
appeared as Sunday editorials in the Rocky 
Mountain News, of Denver; and acknowledg- 
ment is hereby made to the management of 
that paper for its kindness in permitting them 
to be republished under the name of the 
author. In many instances, two or more 
editorials on a similar line of thought are 
combined in one essay. 



FOREWORD ■ 

In the early morning after the news of the death 
of President McKinley had been flashed around the 
world, a newspaper man, weary with the labor of 
the night, took his \yay homeward. Since evening 
the bulletins had indicated the certain end. An en- 
tire nation was shocked and stunned, and in every 
capital of the earth were expressions of sympathy 
and grief. Each click of the telegraph instruments 
was articulate with sorrow, while underneath this 
note was one of indignation at the dastardly agents 
of murder who had conceived the deed. Here was 
a new force that was a portent, and men looked at 
the future with foreboding. One scribe had re- 
marked : "It does not seem that there is a God, 
or if there is He has left this world to be ruled by 
chance and chaos/' 

Out of all this turmoil the newspaper man went 
into the night. The hour was approaching the 
dawn and there was silence over the city. The 
only sounds to be heard were the occasional shrill 
crow of a cock, the distant bark of a dog, or a soli- 
tary hoof-beat echoing from some neighboring 
street. Men might be torn by grief or frenzy, but 
Nature was unmoved. The ruler of a populous 
nation had fallen, but through all the excitement and 
change here were stability and peace. The great 
blocks of brick and mortar loomed the same as on 
yesterday. The distant mountains stood as they 
had stood for centuries. 



FOREWORD 



Overhead the stars shone with an unwonted 
brightness. Low to the west was Orion, to the 
north lay the polar star and the bear, to the east 
was a brilliant planet yellowing in the dawn, and 
arching across the zenith was the milky way strewn 
like dust with the suns. All the numberless con- 
stellations stood exactly as they had stood at the 
birth of the first man. 

There were worlds on worlds, systems on sys- 
tems, till the mind was bewildered at their contem- 
plation. The infinite spaces were populous with 
orbs. There were stars so distant that the light 
of the troubled earth dwindled to a point and dis- 
appeared billions and trillions of miles short of them. 
Around these suns were innumerable other planets, 
peopled by other races, on which were enacted other 
tragedies. 

On through the infinite silence swung the worlds, 
the suns and the systems, in perfect order and har- 
mony. Outward to the limits of vision and still 
outward through unthinkable distances marched the 
glittering companies, regiments and armies of 
worlds. And so perfect were the plans of the Com- 
manding General that there were no false steps, no 
clashes, no faltering ranks. Every moon and planet, 
the celestial privates, every commanding sun was in 
his place, and all moved with the precision of a per- 
fect machine. 

Before this sublime spectacle the worries of the 
world dwindled, its fevers grew cool and the com- 
plaints of the human fell silent. The questioning of 
God became the babble of a child who does not 
understand. The talk of chaos was the discordant 
squeak of a mouse amid a swelling harmony of 
organ tones. 



FOREWORD 



Here was the eternal Cosmos, everything in place, 
every blade of grass counted, every atom in abso- 
lute adjustment. Talk about chaos ! Nature knows 
no such term. Man, with his limited freedom, may 
make a chaos of his own, but even then the eternal 
law brings it again into harmony. 

Grieve we must, for grief goes up from the 
bruised heart as naturally as the scent from the 
flower; but do not question the Infinite Purpose. 
Often the way is in gloom and we hurt ourselves by 
running into the sharp corners of the immutable 
law. But the light will break and the path, will be- 
come plain. Then we shall learn better. 

Darkness is over us. We look at each other with 
tearful or startled eyes and ask: "What of the 
night?" And, as if in answer to our plaint, from 
some sentinel tower across the universe comes the 
cry : "God reigns and all is well." 



The newspaper man had caught a glimpse of the 
real. Henceforth he decided that, in some sort, he 
would attempt to give the vision voice. He knew 
no better avenue than through his accustomed work ; 
for the modern newspaper is supposed to stand, 
above all else, for real things. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Foreword 5 

Good Will to Men 13 

Look Ahead 20 

The Christ Ideal and Liberty 28 

Living the Truth 37 

Sharing the Kingdom 44 

The Upward Path 52 

A Spiritual Awakening 59 

The Brotherhood of Man 65 

The Social Trend 73 

The Irrepressible Conflict 83 

The Master Builder 89 

True Christianity 95 

The Gospel of Joy 102 

Universal Love 109 

The Need of the Age 116 

Religion in Character 123 

Science Proves Immortality 131 

The Modern Palestine 136 

The Great Souls 143 

Heaven Is Within You 147 

In the Consciousness of God 152 



x contents 

Page 

Seek Only the Highest 156 

Going Home 160 

The Receptive Attitude 164 

The Way of Life 169 

The Attitude of Prayer ■. 174 

The Pure in Heart 179 

Walking in the Light 184 

The Thought of the Soul 188 

The Triumph Over Death 195 



GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 



GOOD WILL TO MEN 

Love rules the world. War, the conqueror, 
finally meets his own conqueror. The lion of 
the earth and the lamb of God lie down to- 
gether; and the lamb is master. Non-resistance, 
the returning of good for evil, has triumphed over 
force and violence. The battle songs are dying and 
the hymns of peace are swelling up to the very 
throne. The brute in us grows feebler and the God 
in us grows stronger with the passage of the years. 
The life and death of the Nazarene are not forgotten 
and the gospel of good will was not in vain. The 
song sung by the angels over Bethlehem 1900 years 
ago is to-day re-echoed by angels and men over the 
whole earth. The dawn gives place to the sunrise. 
The children of men look over into the Promised 
Land of Brotherhood. From the heavens above to 
the earth beneath, the souls on both sides of the 
seeming veil of death are vibrant to the thought of 
universal love. 

Does the picture seem overdrawn? You do not 
see the world so? Then, perhaps, your eyes are at 
fault. Look again. There are discords? Yes. 
Injustice? Yes. Corruption? Yes. Suffering? 
Yes. But look yet again. These are the shadows. 
They come and go. But behind the clouds the sun 
shines on forever. 

The fact appears in the spiritual world before it 
is seen in the physical world. The truths of the 
triumph of love and peace have already appeared 
in the spiritual world, and the hard conditions of 



14 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

hate and war that oppose them on earth must melt 
away as the ice on the stream goes out under the 
sunlight. 

The only sane thing is faith. Doubt but deludes 
you and shuts out what is for you. Faith in truth, 
in good, in justice, in the integrity of the universe 
— this is the very basis for all right thinking. Faith 
knows that the day is here, even though the clouds 
shut out the light. Faith knows that the shadows 
of wrong and injustice will pass, just as the tempest 
rages for a time and is no more, swallowed up by 
a quiet, sweeter for the coming of the storm. 

The only mistake people make is in putting faith 
in personalities, in special and particular things. 
When these disappoint it is rashly concluded that 
faith itself is a lie. It is as though a man bore his 
weight on a defective chair, and because this broke 
under him he should resolve never to sit again. Be- 
cause a liar deceives you is no reason you should 
not believe in truth. Because somebody does not 
know the way of life is no reason that you should 
conclude there is no way of life. You only have 
trusted inadequate things. Be wiser in future. 
Truth and right and life are not less, but you have 
depended on those that had them not. The counter- 
feit does not prove the absence of good coin. It 
simply teaches you to detect the spurious from the 
genuine. 

Have faith in the universal. That never deceives 
you. In the universal, all is right, harmonious, 
perfect. There are no inadequacies, there is nothing 
untrustworthy, in the infinite. This universal, in- 
finite is God. He does not deceive us. Faith in 
Him is never disappointed. We may hold wrong 
thoughts of Him in our minds, and disappoint our- 



GOOD WILL TO MEN 15 

selves. But His truth and right and good are there, 
just as absolute as before. 

His is a Love, never-wearying, never-withdraw- 
ing, never-excluding. By our own hate, our own 
hardness of heart, our own lack of understanding, 
we may exclude this Love; but it is we who do the 
excluding, not He. It is we who have denied our 
own prayers, not He. It is we who have forsaken 
Him; He never forsakes us. 

At last, like little children, we are coming to see. 
Love is the all in all. It conquers hate, it conquers 
war, it conquers sin, it conquers wrong, it conquers 
us ; and only when we are fully conquered by it do 
we really begin to live. 

Let us make no mistake about the quality of love. 
It is never selfish. That is the infallible test. If 
it is of the self, then it is something else 
than Love. It ever gives itself, never exacts. It 
ever serves, never enslaves. It does good, asking 
nothing in return. It seeks to bless its objects and 
gains its own happiness in the happiness of the one 
beloved. It denies not itself. It flows out to all 
creatures. It is good will. It is comradeship. It is 
glad in the prosperity and well-being of others. It 
is innocent and trusting and joyous. It is good 
cheer in the heart, laughter on the lips and sunshine 
in the life. It wearies not in well-doing, and fails 
not at rebuffs. It is as diffusive as light, as im- 
perceptible, as life-giving, as all-conquering. The 
soul that has it has solved the riddle of the Sphinx 
and found the key to heaven. 

Love is the divine law of life. 

When the Master would test one of His disciples 
he did not propound a catechism or a creed. He 
said: "Lovest thou Me?" 



» 



l6 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

When asked as to the chief commandment, He 
gave two, and love is the central thought of both: 
Love thy God and love thy neighbor. 

In music, love is expressed by harmony ; hate, by 
discord. . 

Love somebody. Help somebody. Lift up some- 
body. Bless somebody. This is the divine law. 

Live not unto yourself alone. Forget your selfish 
schemes. Get out of the narrow shell of your ego- 
tism. Brighten the lives of those around you. 
Make sweeter the cup forborne other of God's chil- 
dren. Life is dreary enough at times for all of us. 
Then how much a kind word, a good deed, helps us ! 
Our hearts yearn for sympathy as the flowers yearn 
for the dew and the rain. 

Love is spiritual sunshine. Make your soul a 
sun that shall radiate light and warmth to all about 
you. 

Hatred kills. Love gives life. Hatred embitters. 
Love sweetens and purifies. Hatred degrades. Love 
elevates. Hatred is the road to hell. Love is the 
path to heaven. 

Leave a plant without sunlight and it withers 
away and dies. Leave a heart without love and it 
becomes stunted and dwarfed. 

Love— attraction — mutual dependence and help- 
fulness — run through 'all matter, all life, all the 
universe. 

Love binds the atoms together, it draws force and 
sustenance to the organism, it forms the invisible 
chain which holds the worlds and suns in space. 

With bonds of affection, of patriotism and of 
brotherhood, it unites the family, the nation and the 
race. 



GOOD WILL TO MEN 1 7 

It is the soul of the social system. It is the re- 
generating power of the world. 

A child needs love as much as it needs food, 
shelter and raiment. While the physical comforts 
are essential for its bodily growth, love is required 
for its spiritual unfoldment". 

Love attends us all along the journey of life. It 
is with the infant at its birth. It is the monitor and 
guide of childhood. It is the miracle and sweetness 
of youth. It is the stay of manhood and the pro- 
tection of womanhood. It is the comfort of old 
age. It closes down the eyelids in our final sleep. 

It is broader than family. It reaches to friends 
and neighbors. It is still broader. It extends to 
country. It is still broader. It embraces all hu- 
manity. 

Love for God and man is the soul of religion. 
Take love out of it, and you have left a theological 
husk and a creed. It is a dead thing, for love gave 
it life. 

Love for country, for the flag, for a principle, is 
what makes men heroes and martyrs. It is the 
motive force that impels the true statesman. It is 
the light that illuminates the face of all the great 
and good. 

He loved much. That is the highest encomium 
we can pay to a man. It is sufficient to cover a 
multitude of sins. 

Love is the losing of self. Perfect love is perfect 
unselfishness. Greed cannot live in a heart where 
love is. A man who truly loves mankind cannot 
cheat and overreach his neighbor ; cannot be content 
to live in luxury while others around him suffer 
privations. 
* A man cannot be a true reformer who is actuated 



1 8 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

by hatred of some individual or class. His motive 
power must be love for his fellows. 

Love will banish war, caste, industrial slavery, 
the tyranny of wealth and all social injustice. It 
will lead men away from crime. It will drive out 
cruelty, inhumanity and uncharitableness. 

A mean, little, spiteful nature cannot really love, 
for love and nobility go together. 

Love is but another name for brotherhood. It is 
the foe of all forms of selfishness. 

Love begets love. It is a blessing to him that 
gives and him that takes. It brings forth charity, 
mercy, forbearance, tolerance, benevolence. 

Selfish love is not love at all. It is lust. Real 
love only strives to bless its objects. 

The world best loves that man who best loves 
humanity. Herein is the secret of true greatness. 
Love was the transcendent quality in the heart of 
Lincoln. It made Burns the idol of his people. The 
men whose names live longest are the lovers of the 
race. 

Love is light. Hate is darkness. Climb out of 
the mists and the fogs, out of the strifes, the 
slanders, the spites, into the broad sunshine of uni- 
versal good will and fellowship. 

God is love, and Christ was divine because He 
was the most perfect embodiment of love the world 
has ever known. 

Peace on earth will never come until there is an 
incarnation of the spirit of love in the body of 
human society. 

We have a wrong conception of individuality. 
We are not isolated beings, but we are a part of 
each other and of all things. The consciousness in 
us is in union with the universal God. The realiza- 



GOOD WILL TO MEN 19 

tion of this fact, not merely with our intellects, but 
in our lives, is the attainment of heaven. When we 
can thrill with the knowledge that we are at one 
with the Father and alt His children we have come 
into the kingdom of perfect love. 

Love, real love, is always pure ; and it purifies the 
heart. It washes away selfishness, as a summer 
rain washes the air and the flowers. It cleanses the 
life, as dew cleanses the leaves of the grass. Only 
the pure in heart shall see God ; and He is Love, all 
Love. 

Here is the golden road, the way unto wisdom, 
the path unto truth. Happy is he who finds it. It 
is the summum bonum, the crown of all things, the 
secret of the divine mystery. It is wiser than wis- 
dom, mightier than strength and king over death. 
He who knows it has attained the object of living. 
He who has become the perfect expression of Love 
has gained the goal. He has reached the heights 
and sounded the depths of life. He has experienced 
the supreme bliss. Henceforth for him there is no 
more struggle or sorrow. He is absorbed into the 
bosom of God, as "the dewdrop slips into the shin- 
ing sea." 



LOOK AHEAD 

It is the Easter morning of a new age. The 
shackles are broken. Never can they be re- 
welded. The worship of men, of forms, of 
letter, of creeds, of days, of anything but the eternal 
Spirit of God is forever ended. There will be a few 
trailers who cannot keep up with the procession, 
a few blind who cannot see the new light, but in 
spite of these and their croakings the work is done. 
The transformation has taken place. Humanity is 
emancipated. The sun is rising. It may take a 
decade for the light to become visible to all. It may 
require some years before the physical manifestation 
appears. But in the thought of God these are but 
moments. The new light and the new time are 
here. The living Christ is triumphant. 

The ages have been filled with the idolatry of 
symbols. The time has come for pure, spiritual 
worship; for each man to go direct to the Throne 
of the Most High; for the divine consciousness to 
become a burning fire in each bosom; for sin and 
disease, which are but forms of error, to gradually 
disappear before" the inner illumination of Truth. 

Revelation did not end in the past. God yet 
speaks in the souls of those who will hear Him. 
We do not worship the dead, but the living. The 
Greeks, the Romans and the Scandinavians personi- 
fied the forces of Nature and bowed down to these. 
Materialism and fetich-worship ! The Chinese adore 
the memories of their ancestors. Materialism and 
f etich- worship ! So the idolatry of formalism, 



LOOK AHEAD 21 

literalism and old emblems constitutes but material- 
ism and fetich-worship. The living Spirit, ever- 
lasting and infinite, the source of all that was, or 
is, or is to be, this alone should be adored. There 
should be no other gods before Him. Call Him 
what you will — Jehovah, Lord, God, the Over-Soul, 
the Universal Thought, the Cosmical Conscious- 
ness, Divine Love, the Spirit of Truth, the Eternal 
Right, the Light of the Universe, the All-Knowl- 
edge, the I- Am, or simply the Father ! Names are 
only symbols. The Truth remains. He lives. In 
Him we have our being. To Him all men can 
bow. In His divine sunlight creeds disappear like 
mists. Open your mind to Him and let your being 
be flooded with a new life. He heals both soul 
and body. When you are free in Him you are free 
indeed. 

Men are so material in their concepts that all 
through the ages they must have something visible 
and sensuous to idolize. If it were not a block 
of stone or wood, it was a picture, or an image, or 
a form, or a priest, or a building, or a relic, or an 
institution. But that era has passed. The day has 
come for the worship of the Father in spirit and in 
truth — as an immanent, ever present, all-loving and 
all-helpful Power. 

The soul of each man is the temple of God. The 
divine presence within is its own high priest. No 
man has any. right to make a creed for another. 
That is only placing repression on the soul, which 
is sacred. The day of restricting the divine, inward 
impulse has passed. The day of liberty is at hand. 

This is what it means to read the Scriptures in 
the spirit. You see the revelation of the past in the 
light of your own revelation in the present. The 



GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 



Christ who is within the Father will come to you 
if you call upon Him. And He has healing in His 
wings, both for the spirit and for the body. 

You do not have to wait for the better day. It 
is already dawning. The blind may not see the new 
light flooding the world ; but those who are spiritu- 
ally awake are already glorified by its effulgence. 

Long enough has the world bound itself to the 
past. It is time to cut loose and go forward. 

Long enough have we been ruled by custom, by 
traditions, by old forms. It is time to follow the 
living spirit that is in us, to be guided by the living 
light and to let the dead bury their dead. 

All that which is good and wholesome in the past 
will be preserved, but there is no need of binding 
ourselves to an evil thing simply because it is old. 

Leave the superstitions, the cant, the hypocrisy, 
the greed, the tyranny, the war, the class and sec- 
tarian divisions, the injustice to those who labor — 
leave all these heritages of ages that are dead and 
follow the living Christ. 

For He is living and as truly leads His people 
to-day as He did the disciples nineteen hundred 
years ago. 

But we have hedged Him around by a mass of 
cant, creeds, formalities, sectarianism, tinsel halos, 
mammon worship, pagan forces and murder, rub- 
bish that we have gathered from all the world and 
called by His sacred name. Clear away the barriers 
and let mankind look on the real Jesus. 

Do not deceive yourselves. The skepticism and 
new thought of to-day is not so much an antagonism 
to true Christianity as it is to the things which some 
are pleased to label Christianity. 

Humanity is turning more and more to the simple 



LOOK AHEAD 23 

and sublime faith of the Nazarene. The world is 
eager to receive the truths which He taught. 

Are we not ready to abandon the dead forms, the 
old dogmatic husks, the hatred and selfishness, the 
ancient spirit of force, the golden idols, the worship 
of money and to turn to the spiritual light, the 
doctrine of love and brotherhood, the gospel of self- 
renunciation as presented by the Man of Galilee? 

Vows amount to little if the heart is not right. 
They are from the lips outward and are broken 
as lightly as made. If we wish to abandon our 
evil habits we must eradicate them from our lives 
by taking a higher and nobler view, by seeking to 
render service to others, by entering into the love 
of good ior its own sake. 

As with individuals, so with society at large. 
Laws are the vows of nations. But if they come not 
from the hearts of the people they avail nothing. 
You cannot permanently reform the world by legal 
enactment. You must eradicate the evil customs 
from the popular life, you must spread morality and 
intelligence — especially among those in power and 
place — you must elevate the national ideals, you 
must inculcate the spirit of Christ in the body politic. 

In order to get rid of the wrongs of the past, 
the racial habits of evil, we must get the racial heart 
right. 

Before we can reach right, however, we must be 
right ourselves. 

The only way we can do this is to go to the 
fountainhead. We must study Jesus as He was, free 
from the accumulated prejudices of the centuries. 

We must study His truths as He taught them, 
not as they have been filtered through nineteen 
hundred years of creedism. 



24 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL' 

The interpretation that answered in the fifteenth 
century will not answer in the dawn of the twentieth. 

The world wants the full gospel of the Master, 
and not the medieval conception thereof. 

There is no danger from all the discussion, in- 
vestigation, higher criticism and even doubt of this 
age. 

Truth never permanently suffers from the on- 
slaughts made upon her, but above the babel of 
voices rises tranquil and triumphant. 

Like nature, Christ's teachings contain worlds as 
yet undiscovered. The vast outlines are now begin- 
ning to come into view. The race is beginning 
to catch new meanings and to see old meanings m 
a new light. It is discerning spiritual depths and 
beauties undreamed before. It sees the bearings of 
the Master's gospel on social and industrial ques- 
tions. It is learning that the reforms needed in this 
age were foreshadowed by Him nineteen hundred 
years ago. 

The result of all this will be a greater and broader 
Christianity than has ever before been known. 

The man-made doctrines and interpretations are 
disappearing. The Christ-made doctrines are rising 
more and more into view. 

Full of light and music and beauty they are, and 
they will grow as men grow more and more into 
their perception. 

The difference between Christianity and all other 
religions is that it is so imbued with love and for- 
giveness. 

Confucius and Buddha gave noble messages to 
the world, but neither so overflowed with love for 
all humanity as that of the Nazarene. 

The progress of the twentieth century will be 



LOOK AHEAD 2$ 

toward the realization, in an every-day, common- 
life sense, of the sermon on the mount. 

Really, if man could but see it, the world is near 
the dawn of a new era — the real Christian era — 
when the creeds and divisions will disappear, when 
the cant and formalities will be swept aside and 
when all humanity will become His church. 

It is time to break the fetters and be free as He 
would have us free — free to turn from our material- 
ism and false conceptions of life, free to arise to 
the nobler destiny that awaits us. 

Nothing- is exactly like anything that has been 
before. Life progresses by unfoldment, develop- 
ment, evolution. Thus all things are forever new. 
They include the old, yet are more than the old. 
There is infinite variety. Each moment has its own 
revelation. Each presents, in turn, something new 
and strange, some novel beauty, some phase of truth 
never seen before. All of this slept in the germ of 
the Past, ready to unfold into life and manifesta- 
tion under the broodings of Progress. 

There is no loss. Form and function change, but 
being goes on. The past is ever included in the 
present. All of its results are here. All of the 
record is kept in the universal storehouse. Not a 
blade of grass passes unmarked. Every hair of the 
head is numbered. There is an eternal conserva- 
tion of all the things that are. Appearances come 
and go like the clouds of the sky, but the sun shines 
on forever. Nothing that is can ever cease to be. 
Its shells may change, but the essence is immortal. 
No experience can ever really be forgotten. The 
universe knows no such thing as loss. 

Life is continuous. It is a unity. In that unity 
is never exhausted variety. Day by day presents 



26 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

some new phase of the one-life. All things that are 
hold relation to all things that ever have been, to all 
things that ever will be. The loom of life goes 
on weaving and the cloth of gold it produces is con- 
tinuous and seamless. In it are an infinite number 
of threads. No one thread is like another all in all ; 
each is distinct from the others, and yet all go to 
make up the one texture. Each thread may be com- 
pared to an individual life. On they go, now over, 
now under; this moment visible from the upper 
side, the next moment from the under; but no 
thread ever ceases. New colors are constantly ap- 
pearing, new combinations are ever made, but it is 
always the same cloth, made up from the same indi- 
vidual lives. So the warp and woof of time goes 
on to eternity. 

We can never be bound to the old. The relative 
statement of yesterday does not answer for to-day. 
The creeds, the forms, the husks that enfolded us 
last year cannot enfold us this year. We see the 
truth in a new way and must tell of it in a new lan- 
guage. The truth has not changed, but we have 
changed in our larger consciousness of the truth. 
The spirit of man constantly receives a revelation 
from God. The Word comes always. It does not 
stand still. It ever has its interpretation in har- 
mony with the spirit of the time. It is as infinite 
in its evolution as is life. It develops as our under- 
standing of it develops. 

He who ties himself to an old custom will stand 
still in the race of life. If he would ever go forward 
to his divine destiny he must be free. He cannot 
weigh himself down with a ball and chain forged 
in some past age. He must live in accordance with 
the gospel of to-day, the living Word of God. 



LOOK AHEAD 27 

The Past is our teacher, not our tyrant. The 
dead have no right to rule the living. Precedent is 
all very well, provided it does not become a man- 
acle. But he who ever looks for precedent has his 
face turned backward instead of forward. He is 
looking to the darkness in the west instead/ of the 
rising dawn in the east. He is trying to cramp the 
growing spirit of to-day in the narrow shells that 
should have been cast aside when their use ended. 

The stairway to God leads upward and onward. 
He who would mount must keep his face to the 
future. 

The great teachers, prophets and leaders are those 
who have sounded the watchword of the New. They 
have refused to be bound by anything except the 
voice of God in their own souls. 

We need not worry about the past. It is safe. 
It cannot be lost. Our only concern is to keep on 
moving. 

The Commanding General that marshals days, 
years, worlds and races gives the constant com- 
mand of "Forward, march !" 



THE CHRIST IDEAL AND LIBERTY 

Freedom is the dearest right of man. The love 
of it has stirred the world in every age. Ex- 
cepting religion, no deeper sentiment ever 
found lodgment in the human heart. In fact, the 
two emotions have intermingled, until liberty itself 
has become a religion. 

Since the days of Marathon and Thermopylae, 
aye, since the days of Moses, men have gladly laid 
down their lives that their children might be free. 
The purest and best states of the world have 
flourished where the people have governed them- 
selves. The men most revered and loved by their 
fellows are those who have sacrified themselves on 
the altar of liberty. 

Freedom of thought, of speech, of the press, of 
worship, of labor, of trade ! The road to the attain- 
ment of each of these is lined with the bones of 
martyrs. Yet they have not all been attained — none 
of them completely so. The remainder of the task 
is for us. Will we arise to the duty as have the 
immortals gone before? 

Christ was killed because He opposed tyranny — 
because he denounced the political and religious 
institutions of His day. He dared to stand for the 
people, to scourge the money changers, to hurl His 
condemnation in "the faces of the Pharisees and 
hypocrites. 

He stood for Liberty, in the highest and truest 
sense. He was not only for equal rights, but for 
common property; and His disciples and the early 



THE CHRIST IDEAL AND LIBERTY 29 

church followed that idea. He was for the freedom 
of thought and speech. The idea of a union of 
church and state was utterly foreign to Him. That 
came later, when Christianity reached temporal 
power in the time of Constantine. 

Because some of His professed followers misrep- 
resented Him is no fault of His teachings. The 
reason the church has not been true to Liberty is 
because it has not been true to Christ. But it must 
not be forgotten that the greatest friends of human 
rights have been followers of the Nazarene. Savo- 
narola, the monk, was killed, not so much because 
of his religious ideas, but because he stood for the 
freedom of Florence. Washington and Lincoln 
breathed the spirit of the Galilean. 

The French revolution became the horror of the 
ages and failed of its high possibilities because it 
had no Christ in it. It was atheistic. It sank itself 
into a reign of murder because it had no spiritual 
uplift. Napoleon fell because he forgot God and 
the people and thought only of his own and his 
family's glory. 

The world as yet never had genuine Christianity 
or real Liberty. The two will come together. There 
is no freedom without brotherhood, and brother- 
hood is the Christ ideal as it relates to society. 
Slowly the world has been working out that thought. 
The only approach toward freedom, except in 
Judea, Rome and Greece, has been in the Christian 
countries. In the foremost of these the vanguard 
is now climbing the mountains for a look into the 
promised land. 

It has been a long, hard struggle, the culmination 
of which is yet to come. But the best minds of the 
race have now learned the great truth : That the 



30 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

banners of Christ and of human freedom must be 
carried forward together. Each idea is necessary 
to the other. Without the full realization of the 
meaning of His message Liberty cannot be fully 
attained. Without men are free, as God intended 
they should be, Christianity cannot be realized 
in its highest and best sense. 

These two forces are moving toward a common 
point. When they reach that point and begin work- 
ing in full harmony, the greatest age of the world 
will be ushered in. It is possible that day is not so 
far distant as some imagine. 

Freedom arises out of the very nature of the 
soul. It is almost amusing to hear some men deny 
the freedom of the will and in the next breath de- 
mand mental and political liberty. If man is not 
free, how can human laws make him free? 

God gave man freedom to work out his own des- 
tiny, his own salvation. It is part of the scheme 
of soul culture, of individual progress and of the 
attaining of immortality. This freedom man must 
not curtail. To see that he does not was part of 
Christ's mission. 

A man's higher nature is placed in bondage, 
repression, by his own lower nature, or by the lower 
nature of some other man. We are slaves to error, 
either the error within ourselves or the error in the 
relations of others to us. 

Law, limitation, belongs to the material universe. 
In the spiritual is liberty. As a man rises more 
and more into the spiritual, he attains to more and 
more liberty. As he sinks more and more into the 
physical, he is in greater and greater bondage. Thus 
the nations rise, through higher education and soul 
development, from the absolute despotism up 



THE CHRIST IDEAL AND LIBERTY 31 

through various stages to the republic. As all 
progress has been toward spirituality, so has it been 
toward liberty, for the two in the last analysis are 
one. 

All the governments, or absence of governments, 
on earth cannot make a man truly free. He alone 
can do that. Yet without freedom in the govern- 
ment it is harder to live the life. 

A man may be a slave to the avarice of other men 
or a slave to his own avarice. He may be kept in 
bondage through the ignorance of others or through 
his own ignorance. He may be held in subjection 
to gratify the appetites of others or to gratify his 
own appetites. Yet the only real slave is the man 
who enslaves himself. For, though his body is in 
chains, his soul may know its oneness with God and 
thus have attained the highest liberty. 

The only real slave is he who is servile within 
himself; for he who has the kingly soul will still 
retain the kingly attitude toward the universe, al- 
though he be in a dungeon. 

He who has freed himself from his own error 
will be the most ready to resist when some one else 
tries to put error upon him. He who has established 
right relations with his own soul and with God 
will be the more ready to maintain right relations 
with his fellow men. 

Anything that helps to liberate us from a false 
sense of isolation, of selfhood, of narrowness, of 
illiberality, of bigotry, of antagonism, of unchari- 
tableness, truly gives us freedom. The elemental 
self, which is the father of all these things, is the 
real devil. We can escape from it only by coming 
into the consciousness of our oneness with all things. 

A creed is the attempt of one man to bind the 



32 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

soul of another. But, in the very nature of its 
spiritual being, the soul demands absolute freedom. 
Repression of this sort has filled the world with 
sectarianism, with gibbets and racks, with hatred, 
with the husks of controversy. 

The world needs free men, men great enough to 
overcome the passion and selfishness in themselves 
and to overlook them in others. It needs men who 
can cut loose from the fetters of the past and fol- 
low truth. It needs men who have freed them- 
selves from all desire except to serve God and Man. 
It needs men who have ceased to make a fetich even 
of their own intellectuality and who are ready to 
follow their own souls. It needs men who have 
resolved to be slaves no more — either to themselves 
or to others. 

Faith, hope, love, truth and liberty all belong 
in the spiritual realm; and if we desire them in 
their fulness in our own lives we must rise into the 
spiritual realm for them. 

The real error that is at the basis of all bondage 
is the idea that we are things apart from God and 
our fellow-men. When we have come into the one 
great and luminous thought that the spirit in us is 
the same as that in all men, and that that spirit is 
God, we have found the truth that shall make us 
free. 

Liberty comes out of perfect adjustment. A man 
does not become free by separating himself from his 
kind. Solitude is not liberty. True freedom only 
comes with brotherhood, when each man lives his 
life and fills his place without interfering with the 
life or place of his neighbor. 

Selfishness is the great slave-driver of the world ; 
either our own selfishness or the selfishness of 



THE CHRIST IDEAL AND LIBERTY 33 

others; and it is only as this selfishness disappears 
under the solvent of universal love that liberty 
comes. Men like to consider themselves superior 
to others, to rise at the expense of others, to live 
by the labor of others; and all these things beget 
slavery. Only by the application of the golden rule 
can perfect freedom be realized. 

But, before selfishness can be overcome, before 
the golden rule will be applied, mankind must rise 
into the spiritual plane. The better nature, the soul- 
life, must be awakened within us. With this come 
love between man and man, good will, peace, har- 
mony, perfect adjustment. All these things beget 
liberty. 

Understanding this law, we see why movements 
toward liberty have grown out of religious awaken- 
ings. 

It is an instructive fact that the only real freedom 
the world has ever known has come in Christian 
countries. After thousands and thousands of years 
of comparative civilization the Oriental lands are 
ruled by castes and despotisms. Rome and Greece 
had no liberty compared to ours. It was more in 
the seeming than in the substance. It did not ex- 
tend to the people. In the last 400 years has ap- 
peared most of the freedom worth mentioning. And 
that, so far as it relates to us, can be traced, directly 
or indirectly, to one source — the Puritan uprising 
in England. The mainspring of that uprising was 
religious. The political movement grew out of it. 

In this age we do not give proper credit to that 
world epoch which culminated in the English revo- 
lution. Yet from that directly grew our own revo- 
lution and indirectly grew the French revolution. 
Puritanism was the source of them all. So that to 



34 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

this profound spiritual awakening in the seventeenth 
century can be traced most of the liberty we are 
enjoying at the present day. That this upheaval wa3 
the source of liberty in England is perfectly ap- 
parent. That it was the source of liberty in this 
country must be admitted when it is considered how 
thoroughly the New England idea, which came from 
Puritanism, has dominated our entire history. That 
liberty in France was due indirectly to the same 
origin will be apparent when a few facts are con- 
sidered. In spite of their seeming antagonisms, 
England and France have always been very close 
together. They have much of the same Norman 
blood, are contiguous geographically and have al- 
ways powerfully influenced each other's thought. 
The seeds of the French revolution were sown at 
the time of the English revolution. It took them 
longer to bear fruit. The same forces were at work 
in both countries. The revolt in both cases was 
against the same systems and tyrannies. The 
French revolution finally came to a head as a direct 
result of the example of the American revolution. 
So the three great upheavals are intimately con- 
nected. And they all had their rise in Puritanism, 
a religious movement. 

In this age there is a certain flippant tendency to 
underrate the Puritan. That is because we do not 
understand him. We are too materialistic, too 
worldly, to appreciate his character. But, in this, 
did it ever occur to us that he was right and we are 
wrong ? . He looked at the eternal ; we at the evan- 
escent. He was closer to God than we. In spite of 
what we, in our superior way, term his fanaticism, 
he was ruled by a principle. He was attempting 
to follow God's voice in his soul rather than old 



THE CHRIST IDEAL AND LIBERTY 35 

customs. He was rebelling against the formalism, 
the immoral standards and the unfaith of his age. 
He was moved by a powerful spiritual impulse — so 
powerful that it has been felt in the world from 
that day to this. It drove Charles I from the throne 
and gave the world a Cromwell, a Milton and a 
Hampden. It finally eventuated in transferring the 
government of England from the crown to the par- 
liament. It sent the Mayflower across the sea. It 
generated a spirit that threw the tea into Boston 
harbor and fought Lexington and Bunker hill. 
Later the same force made such an abolition senti- 
ment that slavery was driven from the American 
continent. And its work is not yet done. 

It was a robust, virile, courageous movement. 
There was no hair-splitting, milk-and-water namby- 
pambyism about it. It not only announced the right, 
but was ready to fight for it. Singing psalms and 
praising God it went into the battle. Its conscience 
was behind its sword-stroke, and for that reason it 
won. It was a home-loving, God-fearing, moral 
movement. It did not wink at vice and invent 
smooth sophistries to cover sin. It was stout and 
sturdy, the most courageous movement ever known 
to history. It was prayerful and sought to know 
God's way. There was nothing complacent about 
it. When it saw a wrong it cried out in indigna- 
tion. It was intensely patriotic. Its strongest men 
wept at having to oppose the king. But, having 
wept, they buckled on their armor and went to 
death for God and liberty. 

No people ever stood so stoutly for individual 
freedom. True, for a time they were intolerant to 
others. But this was one of the things that the time 
had bequeathed to them and that they had not en- 



36 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

tirely overcome. At last they saw that political 
liberty and religious liberty must go together. Much 
of this seeming intolerance, however, grew from 
their rigid adherence to principle. They had been 
trained in an uncompromising school. Yet, for all 
this, England had never enjoyed more religious 
liberty than under the Puritan protectorate. 

We have no stones to throw at the men who 
carved out freedom. We need their spirit in the 
world to-day. We need their love of the wholesome 
and the clean. We need their profound religious 
convictions. We need their loyalty to principle. 

And, more than all, we need their religious fervor, 
their spiritual impulse, their awakening to the 
presence and the leading of God. Never in all the 
world's history has been seen a more divinely in- 
spired movement than was this. Never one that so 
blessed after ages. Never one that so lifted man- 
kind to spirituality and liberty. 

May it not be that we are on the eve of another 
such awakening? May it not be that here in our 
own land is to be re-enacted in a larger and more 
pacef ul way that world-shaking drama ? The cause 
of God does not go backward, and just now the 
race needs another mighty impulse to lift it out of 
its selfishness and upward toward the freedom that 
is of Him. 



LIVING THE TRUTH 

Be genuine. Maintain the integrity of your 
own soul. That is the first requisite of him 
who would express the Christ-life. He must 
ring true. He must be a man. He must be whole 
on all planes. 

To be genuine you must be honest. You must be 
honest with 'your own soul. You must be honest 
with your fellow-man. As money is our most com- 
mon medium of dealing with others, it is here that 
your honesty, or lack of it, will be most fully ex- 
pressed. He who will not deal justly by his 
neighbor fails in the first step toward living the 
golden rule. He shows himself lacking in the 
initial test. How can he be a disciple of truth when 
he is false in his" relations to others? Mere lip 
service or intellectual appreciation does not consti- 
tute discipleship. You must get the principle into 
your soul. You must make it a part of your char- 
acter. You must live it. 

Dishonesty comes both from selfishness and from 
weakness. A man who is unselfish and strong can- 
not be willing to cheat another. He must be on the 
level. He must be square. He must , believe in 
fairness. He must express his wholeness — his in- 
tegrity. 

No man can live the truly religious life if he does 
not deal squarely by those with whom he is brought 
in contact. What does the Christ say? "First 
be reconciled to thy brother." But you cannot 
be truly reconciled to your brother so long as you 



38 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

owe him a debt you do not intend to pay. The 
temple of worship to God must be founded upon 
the rock of right dealing to man. 

Do you say you cannot afford to be honest ? You 
cannot afford to be anything else. Better to starve 
your body than to dwarf your soul. Better deprive 
yourself outwardly than deprive yourself inwardly. 
It is a mistake to think that you must live, if that 
living be at the expense of principle. No man 
ever really suffered because he was honest. If a 
man's word is known to be as good as gold he need 
not lack. First seek ye the kingdom and these things 
shall be added unto you. But one of the ways of 
seeking the kingdom is to let no man have aught 
against you. To build a structure of success you 
must have a sound foundation. Start right. 

When you cheat your neighbor you bear the 
greater loss of the two. He loses a few dollars; 
you lose your own sours integrity. His loss is of 
something outside of himself; your loss is of some- 
thing within. He may readily replace what has 
been taken from him, but how can you supply your 
missing self-respect, your inherent sense of justice 
that you have outraged? 

The law of recompense operates unerringly. Do 
not think you can really escape a debt. Some time, 
some place, you must pay to the uttermost farthing. 
Evasion or shirking now will not release you. The 
law goes on. To-day or some other day, in this 
life or in a life to.be, you must square the account. 
This applies not only to a money obligation, but to 
every other; it applies to the money obligation be- 
cause that is a part of the whole. It is a short- 
sighted policy that puts off a settlement, for the 
settlement is as sure to come as the effect is to follow 



LIVING THE TRUTH 39 

the cause. The universe is not run at haphazard, 
however our lives may be. You cannot take with- 
out giving. If you attempt it you cheat yourself. 
You simply add to your own burden. You simply 
make your account larger for a future reckoning. 

Human fictions, be they legal or otherwise, do not 
change the Eternal Law. The only way to get 
money or other things of value is to give an equiva- 
lent. Those who seem to evade this natural order 
do not really evade it in the long run. Time evens 
all things. If through .some subterfuge, some 
gambling device, some unjust law, or in whatsoever 
way, you take from your brother without making 
adequate return- you at last must foot the bill. And 
because Society permits it you cannot make Society 
pay your debt. 

The reason that honesty has fallen somewhat into 
disrepute in these latter days is that very much of 
our present industrial, and financial system is 
founded on dishonesty. In our mad race for wealth- 
getting, we have forgotten the Law of Recompense. 

But God is not mocked. Our fictions do not 
change His truth. As we sow we shall reap. The 
debt must be paid. The debt of chattel slavery was 
paid, and that of wage slavery will be paid. Both 
here and hereafter. Here by Society and both here 
and hereafter by individual souls. 

You can't get something for nothing. If you 
seem to do so for a while, it is only a seeming. You 
must make good. The entire Cosmos is pledged 
to see that every debt is paid. The exact adjust- 
ment and balance of things could not be maintained 
in any other way. A few human symbols scrawled 
on a piece of parchment and proclaimed a law do 
not alter the Divine Purpose. He who takes that 



40 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

which is not his own, in the eye of the Changeless 
Truth, is a thief, it matters not how many govern- 
ments protect him in his theft. 

Each man is entitled to that which he produces 
or its exact equivalent. He who corners God's re- 
sources to rob his brother shall not escape an ac- 
counting when the books are balanced. 

Honesty is not only the best policy. It is the 
Law of Life. It is time that men as individuals 
and Society as a whole were getting into harmony 
with this Law. 

You cannot really love God until you love Man. 
And you cannot really love Man until you deal 
fairly by him. 

Maintain the integrity of your own life. 

It is only in an atmosphere of truth that noble 
souls can grow. The mists of deceit shut out the 
spiritual sunlight that is necessary for the inward 
unfoldment. Falsehood stunts the finer sensibilities. 
It shames all the better nature in us, until we can- 
not look another in the eye. It makes of a man a 
sneak, until he cowers before his fellows. It makes 
of him a sham who tries to seem what he is not. 
It makes of him a cheat, who cheats himself more 
than anyone else. 

The liar is a coward at heart. The very conscious- 
ness of his deceit takes all the courage and manli- 
ness out of him. He usually resorts to falsehood 
to escape some real or imaginary ill. He seeks to 
evade the consequences of some guilt by covering 
it up. He is too short-sighted to realize that he 
only compounds the fault and that some time, some- 
where, he will have to pay the penalty for two sins 
instead of one. 

Lying is so petty and mean that only a small 



LIVING THE TRUTH 41 

nature is capable of it. If a great soul errs, it is in 
a great way. He cannot stoop to the despicable and 
little. If he goes amiss, he has the courage to face 
the results of his wrongdoing. But the liar skulks 
and evades. He cannot put on the lion-front and 
stand at bay, but, like the snake, wriggles out of 
sight. Like the snake, too, he hisses his venom at 
others. He is so small he must needs try to detract 
from his fellows till they seem as small as himself. 

The man who can bear false witness necessarily 
has a yellow streak in his makeup. He would prob- 
ably be capable of any other meanness that he had 
the bravery to attempt. He might not become a 
large criminal, for that requires courage. But he 
would be ready for minor vices and sins. False in 
one thing, false in all. 

The liar betrays himself. He not only has to 
make his story "hang together," but his manner has 
certain signs that the practiced eye can read. The 
badge of deception is in the countenance. The shift- 
ing eye, the hang-dog look, the very tones, reveal 
it. The experienced court reporter grows in time 
so that he can detect the lying witness by a certain 
quaver of the voice. The frank and open bearing 
are gone from the liar. He cannot be easy in the 
presence of the genuine and the true. He shrinks 
from honest manhood. There is something in the 
soul that instinctively warns you when you meet a 
man who is false. He carries it in the atmosphere 
about him. He can no more conceal it than the 
leopard can conceal his spots. 

The tongue is not the only lying member. You 
may bear false witne*ss by a look, a shrug, or an 
attitude. You may seal your lips but lie in your 
heart. Your whole life may be a deception. You 



42 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

may be posing for the thing you are not. You may 
place about you a case of artificiality so that the 
world may not look on your real self. You are a 
sham. You are a fraud to yourself and others. 
You are false to the world and to your own soul. 

Naturalness is coming to be more and more 
prized. Be what you are. Think too much of your- 
self to ape another. Don't pose. Don't gild your 
exterior and leave your interior full of filth and 
pollution. Seek rather to make your heart right, 
and let that shine through and irradiate your life. 
Be genuine. Live your own life. Express your 
own soul. Stand for your own best thought. By 
so doing you will respect yourself and others will 
respect you. 

Do not gossip about your fellows. They have 
the same rights to live their lives that you have to 
live yours. In nine cases out of ten the man who 
talks about his neighbor either lies himself or 
peddles somebody else's lie. He who maligns an- 
other hurts three persons. He detracts from the 
reputation of the man of whom he speaks, poisons 
the mind of his hearer and dwarfs his own soul. 

All through the ages men have searched for 
truth; and at last have learned that the only way 
to gain it is to be true themselves. 

Facts may be marshaled in the mind, but truth 
is something more. In its highest expression it rests 
in character. He only knows it in its real essence 
who lives it. It is not simply an intellectual appre- 
ciation ; it is a soul quality. It is knowing the right 
relations of things and holding yourself in right re- 
lations to those things. It is distinguishing the 
eternal from the transitory, the real from the ap- 



LIVING THE TRUTH 43 

parent, the I-Am from its manifestation. Truth is 
of the substance of God Himself. 

Men respect the man that is true. He inspires 
trust. He is a reality amid the shifting sands of 
things human. He begets confidence, and confi- 
dence sustains all that is of worth in the world. 

Honor is but another name for truth, and he who 
has it binds the souls of all unto him, for he ex- 
presses in that far the quality of things eternal. 

Faith rests on truth, and we have faith in the 
final outcome of all things, because we know intui- 
tively that truth lies back of them; for otherwise 
they could not exist for a moment. 

Once a soul in travail sought for truth. He Bur- 
rendered self, and for long days and nights prayed 
that he might behold That Which Is. At last, as 
in answer to his prayer, he seemed to be lifted into 
another realm. All about him was a transparent 
substance, as clear as light and as pure as a moon- 
beam shining on the snow. He looked for objects, 
but objects there were none, only the same continu- 
ous, translucent substance, infinite and eternal. He 
seemed to realize that all the physical objective uni- 
verse, his body included, was but an appearance, a 
shell underlaid by this essence which was of the 
quality of pure being. He heard no sound, but the 
Silence w T as eloquent, for it left in his soul this 
message: Be true. Be true. Be true. 



SHARING THE KINGDOM 

V? elfishness cannot enter heaven. Ho who rises 
& to that realm must make a stepping stone of his 
dead selfhood. And after he reaches it he 
cannot enjoy it for self alone, but must spend his 
entire life in giving it to others. For this is the law. 
Only as we bless others can we be blessed our- 
selves. What God gives to us we must give to our 
neighbors. As His love flows into us, our love 
must flow out to them. As His light illumines us, 
we must illumine them. As His healing touches us, 
we must impart its life to them. 

As the Christ sought to draw all men to Him, so 
we, to whatever extent we have the Christ spirit, 
will seek to help all men upward. For those who 
are really born into the kingdom it is as natural to 
love others and to seek to aid them as it is for the 
soul to seek the comradeship of other souls. 

The difference between the Hindu religions and 
Christianity is shown in the civilizations of the 
Orient and the Occident. The eastern faith is in- 
trospective and seeks to gain the divine light with- 
out giving it out. The result is a civilization standing 
still for centuries, divided into rock-like strata of 
caste, without the universal solvent of love to melt 
them. On the other hand, the western religion, fol- 
lowing the example and precepts of its Founder, 
has expressed its living faith in works; and the 
result has been a constant progress, an uplift of 
the mass, a breaking up of the stratas and a con- 
stant movement toward liberty and brotherhood. 



SHARING THE KINGDOM 45 

There never was an age in the history of western 
nations when there was so much spiritual illumina- 
tion as now; and for this reason the giving out 
should be more abundant. He who gains the peace 
that passeth understanding can only enjoy it to the 
fullest when he radiates it to all about; for, like 
happiness, it grows the more, the more it is di- 
vided. The symbol of the loaves and fishes shows 
that the spiritual food sufficient for one or two may 
be multiplied until it fills the multitude, and still 
there will be an abundance left. 

It is wholesome to love the folks. They are our 
folks, it matters not what the accidents of their 
place or race. They are of our blood, whether born 
in the same house or on an island around the earth. 
The same God. is their Father; the same Nature, 
their mother; the same sun warms them; the same 
life animates them; the same consciousness is in 
them ; the same spirit imbues them. In the highest 
sense we are identical with them, and their joys and 
{sufferings are ours. We can only gain heaven 
really and permanently as they reach it with us. 
We can only love God genuinely as we love them, 
who are God's manifestations. Every wrong we 
visit upon them we visit upon ourselves ; and some- 
time, somewhere we are paid to the uttermost 
farthing — for this is the law of recompense. 

If we are to help others, it is best to have some 
intelligent plan by which to help them to some pur- 
pose. There are many misdirected efforts, made 
with the best of motives, that injure more than they 
assist. The giving of money is good if it is given 
wisely, but often charity of this kind actually hurts 
and demoralizes its object. If the effort and means 
expended in charity were directed to the securing 



46 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

of justice there would be tenfold the permanent 
good. No true man wants to be a mendicant or a 
dependent. All he asks is an equal chance and fair 
play. As one of the children of the common Father, 
he is entitled to these. Real love will help him to 
get them. 

There are many ways to express God's message 
in this age. One of the highest is to live that mes- 
sage, making the life a constant light and inspiration 
to all who see it. Another method of expression 
is in kindliness that is given out like a benediction 
to all whom it touches. Another method is to think 
noble and helpful things — for thoughts go out to 
the souls of others bearing their message of love or 
hate, of truth or error. Another method is to speak 
and write the highest that is in you, teaching all 
how to go to the throne direct to receive a spiritual 
baptism. All these methods are good; and yet, at 
this particular period of the world's development, 
there is perhaps one method better still, and that 
is to seek for an expression of the divine in the 
social, political and industrial life of the world ; and 
this can only come through organic brotherhood — 
the Christian Co-operative Commonwealth. 

Those who have the light dare not hide it tinder 
the bushel of their own selfishness. They must let 
it shine ; and the more to whom it shines the brighter 
it is in their own lives. 

That light can be most widely diffused in some 
great movement of world-wide uplift. In this way 
it becomes a blessing to the present and the future. 
It is augmented because caught up and borne for- 
ward by others. It is more than individual work 
could be, because multiplied by those who are co- 
operating in the movement. It is more apt to be 



SHARING THE KINGDOM 47 

well directed, because there is the wisdom of other 
consecrated souls to help direct it. And it is more 
apt to be continuous because there is the enthusiasm 
of the common cause to keep up an otherwise flag- 
ging purpose. 

This is the beginning of the age of' social and 
industrial regeneration. If you would best serve 
God and man, you can do it by helping forward the 
race toward the era of Brotherhood. 

In the love of others and in the hope of helping 
the race onward, must go the souls that would fol- 
low the Christ. There is but one true w^ay of life 
and that is the way that leads upward, out of self- 
gratification and unto loving service. He who fol- 
lows this way shall find God. But he who follows 
after self, seeking but his own gain and pleasure, 
shall be in error and sin and soul-darkness all 
his days. 

Selfishness begets division, strife, greed, tyranny, 
injustice, uncleanness, corruption, theft, lying, 
murder and all the abominations that curse the 
earth. Only as we rise out of it do we reach unity, 
peace, generosity, liberty, justice, purity, righteous- 
ness, truth and love of God and man. If these 
things could come, earth would be like what we 
dream of heaven. But they never can come until 
we rise out of the domination of the sense-life into 
the rule of the soul-life, until we cease to think of 
our own good as separate from the good of our 
neighbor — until we stop seeking alone for selfish 
reward and do right because it is right. 

To give yourself for a cause, for your country, 
for humanity, or for God, is the most glorious fate 
that can befall you. But to wrap yourself in the 



48 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

little shell of your own egotism, to think always of 
"what is there in it for me," this is death in life. 

It is the old question of the self-life or the Christ- 
life. There is no middle ground. He who gains 
his life for self shall lose it, and he who loses his 
life for Christ shall find it. Choose ye this day 
whom ye will serve. The Christ, who is the spirit, 
is the way, the truth and the life. The devil, who 
is the self, the separate sense of the self, leads the 
way to error and darkness. Which will you follow ? 

For thousands of years men have striven, through 
sophistries, through force, through persecution, 
through ridicule, through all the means known to 
human ingenuity, to overcome these simple truths 
enunciated by the Nazarene. The striving has been 
in vain. The sophistries have been cast aside as 
rubbish on the track of the centuries, the force has 
turned and destroyed those who used it, the persecu- 
tion has but glorified the names of the saints through 
all the ages, and the laugh of ridicule has died into 
the Eternal Silence; but the Truth has lived on. 
Through opposition of foe and apostasy of friend, 
through misunderstanding and misrepresentation it 
has come, from the despised little handful in Judea 
who first heard it and carried it forth, down through 
the ages, like a widening path of light, until it is 
enveloping the world. It has overturned empires, 
built new republics, given new doctrines of liberty 
to mankind, until now it is recognized in both the 
Americas, in practically all of Europe, in all the 
civilized portions of Africa and Australia, and it is 
going on till it conquers Asia. Misunderstood and 
misinterpreted it may have been, but there has been 
enough of the leaven of truth in it to carry it for- 
ward. The Spirit is still at work in the world. 



SHARING THE KINGDOM 49 

Whatever of falsehood has crept in will be purged 
away; and genuine Christianity, the full message, 
will rise resplendent over all those who stand 
for the gospel of selfishness, until the standard of 
the Christ is seen of all men and the true faith is 
acknowledged in all the earth. 

It may be that we are at the low ebb of materialism 
now. It is not the first time in the world's history 
that such has been the case; but always the flood 
tide comes again; and each wave of righteousness 
and spirituality reaches up a little higher than the 
one that preceded it. 

Be not deceived because of a transient condition. 
Evil can never be permanent and corruption destroys 
itself. Though the wjorld may seem to have run 
mad in the excesses of the self-life, there are thou- 
sands, aye millions, that have not bent the knee to 
Baal; there are stout hearts in every land that are 
still loyal to the true God ; there are awakened souls 
that will never swerve, but will pray on and fight 
on for the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. 

Anything that excuses vice, that palliates infi- 
delity in the life, that supports self-seeking, that 
does not make for purity, honesty and a single desire 
for the public good, is not of the truth; and it will 
die, as every falsehood has died. 

The need of the world to-day is men — men who 
will call a wrong a wrong, who will fling a lie in the 
liar's face, who will brave all hell for a conviction, 
who will die if need be that the truth may live. We 
have had enough of namby-pamby dilettanteism. 
We have had enough hair-splitting over non-essen- 
tials. We have had enough metaphysical gush and 
nonsense. We need true souls that will stand for 
the plain and simple truths of righteousness. We 



50 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

need men of the fiber of oak, who know for what 
they stand and dare to proclaim it. We need those 
who are what they are, who are not one thing to 
your face and another thing to your back, who are 
not here to-day and there to-morrow. We need 
those who care more for being right than they do 
for pleasing everyone they meet, who are strong 
enough and great enough to stand for God and 
humanity, whatever the effect upon themselves. 

These are the men and the women who have 
risen above selfishness. These are they who, for 
the sake of the Truth, will lay down their lives, their 
earthly all. These are the men of the stamp of the 
heroes, the martyrs, the great captains for liberty. 
These are the men who will cut off the head of a 
king, if necessary, for the benefit of the state. These 
are the men that will go through a Valley Forge 
rather than give up their inherent rights. These are 
the men that will march from Bull Run to Gettys- 
burg that a nation may be saved and a race set free. 
They are not of the flashy or the dilettante sort. 
They do not pose. They do not shine by reflected 
light. They are simple and manful, standing 
humbly and honestly for the truth as they see it. 
They are the sort of men who read the Bible at the 
fireside and are not too proud or superior to go 
down on their knees and pray. They may not pro- 
fess much religion, but they live it. 

God give us men. That is the prayer of a groping 
and waiting world. We want men who will stand 
for the good of the race, rather than seem to be 
what they are not, that thereby they may advance 
their private interests. Give us men that will lead 
us out of the quagmire of selfishness onto the fair 



SHARING THE KINGDOM 51 

and sunlit plain of brotherhood. We are heartily 
sick of the mammonistic, materialistic, dilettante, 
shifty, insincere and false. We need simple, up- 
right, God-filled souls who dare to stand for Hu- 
manity, for Christ and for the Truth. 



THE UPWARD PATH 

The chief satisfaction of climbing a mountain is 
not in the view it affords, beautiful as that may 
be, but in the sense of surmounting obstacles. 
It is a battle with the boulders and the force of 
gravity. It is a victory won. It is the action of 
conquering, of rising, of overcoming. 

Blessed is he who climbs a mountain of experience 
on each day. It is only so that we gain the wider 
outlooks upon life. It is only so that we attain 
to the conscious power that comes from rising over 
difficulties and scaling barriers. Fain often would 
we rest, and sometimes come weak moments when 
we think of turning back entirely and giving up 
the effort. But the height is always ahead and we 
press on, press on. Long and long appears the 
way and the final summit ever seems as far off as 
at the beginning. More weary we grow, and at 
every step the air is more chill and the slope is 
more bleak. But at last, we fall panting upon the 
height. It is the hour of dawn. The clouds are 
over the peaks, like a great sea with islands jutting 
through. To the eastward, on a level with the 
height extends the horizon, like the rim of a bowl 
sitting upright. Over this rim, like a great red 
rose, being pushed up through the clouds, comes 
the sunrise. Wider and yet wider spread the petals 
of this blowing rose of dawn. At last, through 
the cloudy haze, a smoky, red ball swings clear of 
the edge of the world. Over the tumbling masses 
of the vapor sea fall paths of light. Some of the 



THE UPWARD PATH 53 

cloud billows are tipped with pearl, some with fire, 
some with blood and some with gold. Here and 
there the island-peaks glisten white in the sunrise. 
There is no sound, but the silence speaks like the 
voice of God. Over the soul come an infinite tran- 
quility and calm. The sense of weariness vanishes 
as at a healing touch. The chill is melted by a great 
inward glo\y. The bleakness has been transformed 
into color and grandeur. Like the outward sun- 
rise, there is as it were a sun of righteousness rising 
over our souls. But, sweeter than all, is the feeling 
of having overcome and of having earned the right 
to see this glory and to share this peace. 

We speak in symbol, but the reality is more beau- 
tiful than the symbol. We point to analogy, but 
there can be no analogy great enough to compare 
with the exaltation which accompanies soul-victory. 

In the reality of life there is no mountain peak 
to scale except that of self. There is nothing to sur- 
mount but self. There is nothing to overcome but 
self. As we clamber over the crags and boulders of 
the self-life we come nearer to God. Until at last, 
when we have scaled the very summit of being, our 
consciousness of separate selfhood vanishes and 
merges into the universal selfhood. We rise from 
limitation and bondage into oneness with the Infi- 
nite. We forget our little personality and are 
swallowed up in the larger life. We cease to doubt 
and deny. We are content to be a portion of that 
which is. We look over the broad creation of God 
and know that it is very good. All this is ours be- 
cause we overcome self. Blessed is he that possesses 
it, not in glimpses merely, but as an abiding con- 
sciousness. 

We must learn mastery. We must know how to 



54 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

be strong, though gentle, confident though humble, 
resolute though meek. 

The world needs men of character, men of reso- 
lution, men who have overcome within themselves. 
There have been enough weaklings. We want those 
who can conquer — not other people, but their own 
forces, their own desires, their own appetites. We 
want those who can conquer the secrets of nature 
on the one side and their animal propensities on the 
other. We want men of will, men of grasp, men 
who do not fail. 

In the end there is nothing a soul cannot over- 
come, except infinite love and good and truth. All 
environment, all appearance, all desire, all objective 
manifestation, these lose their hold upon it, for it 
has risen above their power. The process of over- 
coming has this for its ultimate goal. All our activ- 
ities are translated into spiritual results. So every 
force we conquer in the outward is that much added 
force in the soul. 

To him that overcometh is promised all things, 
even to being called the son of God. 

We climb by setting our feet upon vanquished 
temptations. Every unworthy desire overcome is a 
stepping stone. Thus our very evil propensities may 
be made to become our helpers. They are for us 
to conquer. They are for us to surmount; and 
each one lifts us higher and nearer to the goal. 

All mountains are not made of earth and rock. 
Some are constructed out of passions and the very 
substance of human life. The difference is that 
the physical ascents we scale occasionally, while the 
moral heights we are climbing forever. 

We are here to accomplish, to progress, to evolve. 
The constant urge of the soul pushes us forward. 



THE UPWARD PATH 55 

The divine impulse is in us to continue moving. 
Aspiration is of God and it keeps the race ever 
mounting from boulder to boulder of achievement. 
This ascent of the mountain of life we call achiev- 
ing success. Anything is success which brings us 
higher in ( the scale of being and of consciousness. 
And even though we rise on seeming failures the 
victory is as great. 

The object of life is not to have things, but to be 
things ; not to accumulate, but to assimilate ; not to 
add to our bank deposit, but to add to our character 
deposit. The object of life is soul-growth, advance- 
ment toward fullness of being, expansion in "divine 
consciousness. Whatever contributes to these ends 
% is worth while. Whatever does not so contribute 
is wasted effort. 

Things outside of ourselves do not help us to 
climb, except as we overcome them. We only mount 
because of inherent strength. At death we slough 
off all externals, place, reputation, riches, even 
acquired knowledge. We take with us alone what 
has become a portion of us, enwrapped in our very 
being and absorbed in our very souls. 

In climbing a mountain we keep in our minds 
the final summit. In climbing the mountain of life 
it is well to keep in our minds the final summit, the 
conscious unity with God. With this goal in view 
we can shape all our acts toward reaching it. We 
are not so apt to go off into side paths and to fritter 
away time over trivialities if we have a definite 
point toward which we are aiming. 

We should be able to say at each nightfall that 
we have made progress, that we are a little higher 
on the upward path than we were at the morning. 
In considering our journey we should keep in view 



^0 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

all the way, not only that up to the veil, but that 
beyond it. If we once see this whole glorious 
ascent, how trivial seem the accidents and incidents 
of life. Things that before annoyed us lose their 
power. Poverty, disappointments, separation from 
friends, death itself, all become little things of no 
moment. We suddenly understand that they are 
only in seeming after all. Whatever we may en- 
counter, however black may be our despair, however 
hideous may seem our sin, the one supreme object 
of life yet remains — to climb the path. There is no 
place -for useless regret, for unnecessary sorrow, 
for causeless depression. There is only room for a 
determination to move onward. 

Up, up, up forever. Up to the fulness of our * 
own lives, up to a broader vision, up above the de- 
sires that enslave us, up into the freedom of truth, 
up into the love of the All ! 

The staff that we use in climbing the path is 
service — not the service of others to us, but our 
service to others. The world's idea of service is 
an inverted truth. It is really the only badge of 
nobility and it helps him that gives more than him 
that takes. The true service is that which is given 
for love, not for hire. It may be to an individual, 
which is good; or to the race, which is better, for 
then it is multiplied. One of the greatest services 
we can render is to cheer on our fellow travelers, 
or to tell those lower down of the brighter light, 
the larger view and the serener air on the height. 

The climbing of the path is the only success. All 
others, if they are in the line of true success at all, 
are but contributary to this. Fame, wealth, power, 
place, are but opportunities for greater service, 
therefore aids to more rapid climbing. But while 



THE UPWARD PATH 57 

they may help us, they may hinder us ; for if used 
selfishly and not for good of all, they become 
weights to drag us backward. 

There is very much free advice nowadays on the 
achieving of success. All of it is good, perhaps, at 
least in its intent. But it would seem that in most 
of the preachments on the subject the one great 
source of success is largely overlooked — and not 
only the source but the goal, for the two in reality 
are one. Faith in God is the only true means of 
achieving success, and to this truth all history bears 
witness. The only genuine successes have been in 
the line of doing God's work; and the only way to 
do His work is to trust in Him to show you the 
way. It is not only the ecclesiastics who do God's 
work, but the philosophers, the scientists, the poets, 
the artists, the musicians, the statesmen, aye, even 
the warriors. God's work is not partial ; it is as 
big as the all, and those who in any way have con- 
tributed to human progress have done God's work. 
Galileo, Shakespeare and Washington were as truly 
messengers of the Most High as they would have 
been if they had worn surplices — possibly much 
more so. And all these men in the secret chambers 
of their own hearts have depended on God to show 
them the way. 

Faith is not a sentiment. It is the most rational 
and actual thing in the universe. It is a positive 
force, a tangible thing. Its laws are absolute. It 
never disappoints anyone who really takes hold of 
it. It is the means through which all the manifest 
creation comes, the substance on which rest all ob- 
jective phenomena. The real faith is of the soul — 
and it knows. The man who has this faith in 
God, and who seeks to do God's work, is simply 



58 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

irresistible. Sneer if you will, but you know not 
at what you are sneering. It was by this that 
Luther shook the world, by which Lincoln ruled, 
by which Cromwell and Grant won their battles. 
God has His servants in all the walks of life, and 
His servants are conscious of His ruling, whether 
they indulge in lip service or not. 

Faith in God is an actual working- hypothesis, the 
most real thing that a man can take hold of to lift 
himself to success. And no conspicuous triumph 
was ever achieved in any other way nor ever will be. 

Trust in the Father and ask Him to show you 
the way; render service to others; overcome your 
own baser passions and use your self-conquests as 
your stepping stones; make all things contributory 
to your soul growth, and thus you will climb forever 

THE UPWARD PATH. 



A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING 

A one day of the week faith is only one-seventh 
of a faith. A religion that is worth while is 
big enough to spread over all days, all places 
and all the affairs, of life. A belief that is simply 
of the head will argue, condemn and split hairs, 
but the presence of God in the soul will be broad, 
tolerant, loving, without contention or condemna- 
tion, seeing the best in all things and striving to 
express in works rather than words. 

We need things that are alive, that are warm, 
that kindle, that burn, that stir the soul into action, 
that give us dynamics and enthusiasm. The world 
will never be uplifted, inspired and thrilled into new 
life by dead-in-the-shell people or by cold and formal 
theologies. 

It is said that the Holy Ghost has gone out of 
fashion. If it be true, then the soul has gone out 
of fashion, religion has gone out of fashion. Are 
the shepherds of the flocks to let the sheep starve 
because it has gone out of fashion to eat? Or will 
they feed the hungry souls on husks because corn 
is no longer in style? The Holy Ghost is the soul 
of religion. When the spirit has departed the form 
will die. It is the bread of life that people want, 
not a rigamarole of empty phrases. It is the water 
of life for which we are thirsting, not echoes and 
tinsel and vanity. The thing that Christendom, 
that the world, needs to-day is that same Holy 
Ghost which people wise in their own conceits so 
affect to despise. It is never a good attitude of 
mind to know so much that we cannot learn. Some- 



60 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

times we get our intellectual noses so high in the 
air that we cannot see the simple truths about our 
feet. We become so puffed up with second-hand 
ideas that we lose touch with original sources of 
wisdom. We fancy ourselves so superior that we 
lose the poetry, the beauty and the sweetness of 
every-day things. We grow so infatuated in fol- 
lowing a by-path called Modern Thought that we 
wander far from the main highway of the Truths 
of All Ages. 

The Christian church was born in a visitation of 
the Holy Ghost, and if it ever loses touch with that 
Holy Ghost it will die. 

It is better to be in God than to be in style. 

We might not have quite so many rotten legis- 
latures, so much crime, both juvenile and adult, so 
much mammonism, so much materialism, so much 
disregard for the rights of others, if we had a little 
more Holy Ghost religion and a little less fashion. 

Forms come and go like the shadows of clouds, 
but the sun shines on forever. We know little of 
the symbols of worship that were used in the city 
on the second level under Babylon, but the same God 
reigns now that reigned then. The Grecian oracles 
speak no more and the Grecian deities have vanished 
into mist, but the same spirit of truth that thrilled 
Socrates and Plato thrill men to-day. Thor and 
Balder the Beautiful have vanished from the North- 
land, but religion did not die with them. The count- 
less ages of history are littered with the broken 
idols of outworn faiths, but worship is as fresh 
and as young now as it was in Atlantis. And so, 
if every emblem and form were swept from the 
earth, the souls of men would turn to God as 
naturally as a flower turns to the sunlight. 



A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING 6l 

Names change forever, but the substance of faith 
and love and truth remains the same. It is that 
substance for which our souls yearn. 

We want the reality, the Christ-life, the awakened 
divinity within. We want a faith that will get 
hold of a man's whole nature and transmute it into 
the image of the Most High. We want a religion 
that will be applied, not on one day alone, but on 
seven; not in a church building alone, but in the 
counting room, the shop and the legislative hall; 
that will not separate sacred from profane, but will 
make all things sacred; a religion, not for some 
chosen race, but for all races, shining through all 
books, making divine all men and expressed in 
all life. 

Preacher, layman, everybody, dare to get out of 
fashion and to get into truth; dare to break your 
shackles and find God; then dare to proclaim Him. 

There is such a thing as people being too pros- 
perous. They are so well off in a material way 
that they forget. They have so much money and 
ease and pleasure and physical comfort that they 
put the value of these things out of all proportion. 
They have a very comely pile of burnt mud and 
painted boards that they call home, they sell them- 
selves for a comfortable wage, their appetites are 
regularly satisfied, and they lose sight of the fact 
that there is anything else in the universe worth 
living for. 

We have made a god of Prosperity. We really 
have an idea, the most of us, that the only object 
of living is the accumulation of dollars. For that 
is what prosperity means in the last analysis. The 
result is that when the inevitable hard times come, 
we are like maddened animals, blindly attacking the 



62 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

first thing that happens our way. That is what 
comes of putting the emphasis on the wrong end 
of life. 

The trouble with bodily prosperity is that too 
often it means soul poverty. With most of us it 
takes a hard jolt to make us recognize that there 
is anything spiritual in the universe. The Jews had 
to have drouths and captivities and other shakings- 
up to make them remember God. People may be 
so well-to-do that they take on a case of swelled 
head and conclude to leave the soul of things out 
of the iequation. They are too conscious of their 
pocket-books. A hog that has too much to eat usu- 
ally spends most of his time accumulating lard and 
sleeping. But a razorback that is compelled to 
chase acorns gets some of the exhilaration and joy 
of living. Some people receive so much material 
swill that they grow fat-headed and lazy, forgetting 
everything but a loaded table, an easy chair, a soft 
bed and a bank account. Whenever a man settles 
down in that sort of a wallow he needs to be chased 
out and exercised. Content is all very well if it 
does not degenerate into mere self-complacency. 
Better one day of aspiring and doing, of loving and 
being alive, of climbing and realizing, than a thou- 
sands years of the content that eats and lies in its 
bed of husks. 

After all, there is nothing to be satisfied with, 
except growth — conscious, never-ending growth. 
When you become too big for your shell, do not 
try to shrink, but crawl out of that shell and build 
a larger one. The law of life is evolution and de- 
velopment, and if you are not evolving and develop- 
ing, you are not fulfilling the law of life. Nobody 
ever told you to be satisfied with the mediocre, the 



A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING 63 

commonplace and the unworthy — or if he did he 
was spiritually asleep and not capable of giving in- 
telligent advice to an amoeba. God does not mean 
you to be content with anything but the highest. 

What applies to an individual applies with even 
greater force to a nation, or a civilization. When 
the times are too prosperous there is danger that 
people will conclude they are the greatest things 
that ever happened, that they have every other age 
beaten to death ; in other words, that they are It and 
there is no occasion f or_ doing anything more. They 
are so near perfection that they might just as well 
slack up with the car of progress and admire them- 
selves. Whenever any man or any nation becomes 
so well satisfied with himself or itself as to quit 
trying, it is time for that man or nation to die. 
Neither of them has any further business on the 
earth. 

The trouble with us is that we have become too 
well satisfied with our swill-troughs, our husks and 
our wallows. We need to be chased out and made 
to hunt acorns. We need to exercise and work off 
some of our intellectual lard. People who become 
too well satisfied with themselves and their environ- 
ments, with their appetites and their flesh, are usu- 
ally like fat porkers — only good to kill, and we do 
not want any more killings in this country. But we 
do want something that will stir people out of the 
physical and into the spiritual consciousness; we 
do want something to jar folks into higher and 
truer thinking. 

To put it in plain English, the thing the world 
needs just now is a religious awakening. We have 
boasted so much about our unexampled prosperity 
that we have forgotten what we are really here for. 



64 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

We are mistaking the means for the end. It is 
sometimes necessary to jar the world into a recog- 
nition of divine realities, and whenever that ne- 
cessity comes the jar comes. If we desire to avoid 
the jar — with its possible unpleasantness — we had 
better waken up spiritually without it. 

There is nothing so bad as stagnation. The only 
living water is the water that is stirred. If there 
is anything violent in the statements above it is in- 
tended to stir things up. We do not care in the 
slightest degree whether you agree with the state- 
ments or not — just so you think about them. 

Every great forward step in the history of the 
race has been preceded by a religious awakening. 
It may not always have been so termed, but that is 
what it was in fact — a stirring of the souls of men. 
We are active physically, intellectually and all that. 
What we want is to get active with our souls. We 
need the impulse of a little divine discontent. God 
said to Moses : "Speak unto the children of Israel, 
that they go forward." We want that sort of a 
voice speaking to us, and when it speaks, we want 
to hear it, and then — move. 

We do a great deal of complaining about the 
conditions of our time. We complain of corruption, 
loose standards of morals, greed, hardness of heart 
and a thousand and one kindred evils. Mere com- 
plaints never inaugurated a reform in this world. 
Have you a remedy for these things? Have you 
even a palliative for the disease? If not, quit mak- 
ing the patient worse by telling him in what a fear- 
ful condition he is. Stop knocking and find a cure. ' 

There is a remedy. t It lies in awaking the di- 
vine CONSCIOUSNESS IN MAN. 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 

It is the hour before the dawn. Here and there 
some singer, a prophet voice, tells of the coming 

morn. The mass of men do not know, for they 
yet sleep; but now and again some soul awakens 
and, as with an inward eye, sees the first signs of the 
daybreak. 

In the long night of history a decade is as an 
hour, a day as a second. The great clock of Time 
ticks on. The light grows. Ever and anon some 
new voice is added as a herald of the sunrise. The 
world always has its seers, but does not heed them 
till the event they foretold is past. Especially is 
this true in the great epochs, the times before the 
crises. 

The morning star of hope is shining and the 
clouds above it take on a graying tinge. The moun- 
tain tops of the Future catch the first faint radiance, 
though the bases are yet in shadow. A faint breath, 
like a psychic wave, stirs through the world of 
thought. More souls emerge from their slumber 
and wonder if the long-looked-for day is nigh. 

Why paint the sunrise? For that is yet under 
the veil of the Future. And it may come through 
black clouds and storm. Who knows ? It is enough 
for us to feel that it will come, and that sooner or 
later the new day will flood the world with light. 

Mankind is on the eve of a spiritual awakening. 
Liberty is again to lead the races. The old creeds, 
the dogmas and the husks are to be supplanted by 
the living religion of the Christ. Old errors will 



66 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

pass away and old truths will be seen in a new light. 
The century plant of progress, which has grown so 
wonderfully during the past hundred years, will 
burst into flower. Human brotherhood will cease 
to be merely a preacher's phrase and will become a 
vital fact. 

It could not be otherwise. The marvelous ma- 
terial advancement of the world will not end in ma- 
chines and scientific formulas. It has another and 
a deeper- meaning. It will have its counterpart in 
human development. It will reach its logical result 
in a spiritual unfoldment, the like of which the 
world has never seen before. It will bring its bles- 
sings, not to the few only, but to all mankind. 

The age is electric with new thought forces. Men 
are delving into the very mysteries of matter and 
life itself. Hardly a week passes that does not 
chronicle some new discovery which sheds light into 
the innermost recesses of nature. As in the world 
of matter, so in the world of mind. There is fraud ? 
Yes. There is wild and hap-hazard guessing? Yes. 
There is delusion? Yes. But there are also honest 
seekers. There is also scientific research. There is 
also truth. 

This is not a world of accidents. Every event has 
its place. Every new discovery is one more word 
in the book of Progress. Every human advance- 
ment has its part in the unfolding scheme of God. 
All the seeming chaos is working out into the cos- 
mical purpose. All the apparently disjointed move- 
ments tend to a common, though unseen, goal. 

So all these new forces have a meaning. The 
unfoldment in the thought-world will have its 
counterpart in the unfoldment in human society. 
The race is getting ready for a step upward. There 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 67 

is no other interpretation. Men are dreaming of 
better things and the dreams of nations come true. 
All the movements of uplift are preparing to join 
themselves in one mighty army of right. 

Everything is tending toward union. The nations 
are bound by rails of steel and strands of wire ; the 
continents by cables and ocean greyhounds. Capital 
is forming into one compact organization, Labor 
into another. Everywhere is talk of arbitration. 
Everywhere men are coming closer together. 

Read the signs of the times, O faint heart. What 
do they spell ? Look at all of them carefully. See 
the letters forming. Note them, one by one. What 
are they? B-r-o-t-h-e-r-h-o-o-d. Isn't it plain? 
The beginning of the fulfillment of the dream of a 
certain Carpenter in Nazareth nineteen hundred 
years ago. 

The age of differentiation, of competition, of 
sectarianism served its purpose. That purpose is 
now complete and the age is passing away. The 
day of union is at hand. 

The world is beginning to understand the won- 
derful spiritual and social truths that Christ taught. 
They are to be the ideals and models of the New 
Time. And when men learn to follow them, then 
will come peace, liberty, justice, good will and happi- 
ness on earth. We are learning that the trees of 
Greed and Selfishness bear Dead Sea fruits that turn 
to ashes on the lips. Is there not something better 
worth while? Are we not about ready to quit wor- 
shiping the golden calf in the wilderness and to 
journey onward to the land which is our heritage? 

The present evils from which the world suffers 
are rushing on to their own destruction. Out of 
their wreck will rise something greater and better. 



68 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

Do you say this is all a dream ? Well, the present 
chaos of competition and materialism is a night- 
mare. As between the two the dream is preferable. 
Besides, if we all dream it we may make it fulfill 
itself. 

Never in the history of mankind has there been 
so nearly a universal brotherhood as now. Never 
could so many men be called truly citizens of the 
world. There is more of a cosmopolitan spirit, more 
of a bond of union between nations, more of a uni- 
versal interest , in the doings of men everywhere, 
than in any age of the past. We are coming to 
understand each other better. The spirit of the 
Occident is stirring the Orient, while the wisdom 
of the Orient is flooding the Occident. Even China 
is awakening. Whatever we may think of the 
abuses of England's government in India, in the 
end the land of the Hindu will be transformed. 

There is more of a spirit of unity in a religious 
.sense. Christianity is being preached in all nations, 
while Christians themselves are coming to see the 
good that exists in other religions. Narrowness in 
every sense is passing out. We are coming- more 
and more to see the interests of all the races as iden- 
tical. This world-wide upward trend is the distinct- 
ive feature and the hopeful sign of the present day. 

There have been great empires in the past. Baby- 
lon once dominated all Western Asia. At a later 
period Persia exercised the same rule. Then Alex- 
ander, for a short time, made this territory tribu- 
tary to Macedon. In a few centuries Rome was 
queen of everything from England to Palestine. 
But all these empires were but narrow compared 
to the world of to-day. They were held together by 
force. Now the bond is more of good will and 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 69 

interest. Then it was the conquest of all smaller 
nations by the larger. Now it is a democracy of 
nations. Then, at the most, the union took in a few 
hundred million people. Now it extends to a billion 
and a half. Then there was no cohesive power, no 
permanent union, no union at all, in fact, except 
that of the sword. Now there is mutual understand- 
ing, trade relations, constant travel, the railroad, the 
telegraph, the steamship and a certain universal 
good will. 

All of this has made a revolution in international 
relations. Different states no longer distrust each 
other as formerly. Arbitration is coming more and 
more into vogue. What before was left to the 
sword is now settled by the court. 

Herein is presaged the end of war. It is possible 
that the wx>rld has seen its last great conflict. If 
not, one or two more must end the chapter. The 
conscience of the nations will no longer permit any 
great amount of bloodshed. The vast commercial 
interests that are now stronger than any one or two 
governments on the globe, will not allow themselves 
to be disturbed by any extended struggles. There 
will still be, of course, a few little wars among the 
smaller and less advanced nations, petty revolutions 
and the like, little disturbances on the ragged edges 
of humanity. These, too, must gradually disappear 
as civilization and consolidation extend their 
bounds. So it is not at all the dream of an enthusi- 
ast to predict that the present century will see the 
final ending of war upon the planet. 

So all the industrial injustice, governmental cor- 
ruption, and moral and social evils that seem to 
flourish, are rather local in their nature and will 
be sloughted off in time by the healthy body of the 



70 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

whole humanity. These are transitory eruptions, 
rather than permanent blemishes. The trend of the 
entire race is onward and the mighty momentum 
of the mass will sweep out of the way every petty 
local barrier. The hope no longer lodges in any 
particular nation, but rather in every nation. Even 
if the Anglo-Saxon should falter, the Slav, the 
Teuton, the Latin and the Oriental would move for- 
ward. The falling apart of the entire British empire 
would not check the progress for a day. The many 
smaller streams are now uniting* in one great river, 
whose force is irresistible. There may be eddies 
and becalmed spaces, but the current sweeps on. 

After all, there is little room for the pessimist. 
The universal movement i3 becoming so plain that 
he who runs may read. The trend is apparent and 
its course is upward. True, there are problems to 
be solved. When were there not ? And when were 
so many men alert and intelligent in their atti- 
tude toward the problems? We are not expecting 
any sudden and miraculous coming of the millenium, 
but we are expecting, and realizing, a larger good 
year by year. It matters not which faction tri- 
umphs for the moment. All the factions are becom- 
ing animated by the one common desire for better 
things. Even the forces of greed, though working 
blindly, yet are bringing about unity and the elimin- 
ation of waste. Great and beneficent revolutions in 
the world have been inaugurated and carried on by 
those who did not see the end from the beginning. 
It was only after the transformation was complete 
that men, with a glad surprise, saw good emerge 
from apparent evil. 

To the man with the. larger view no age in history 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 71 

ever seemed so hopeful of better things as does this. 
Never were such vast forces in motion, never was 
such rapid progress made. Science, invention, com- 
merce, religious and sociological investigations, all 
are being pressed more generally and with more 
result than ever before. The wars for liberty have 
left with us their blessings. Never did labor pro- 
duce so abundantly, never were the comforts of life 
more generally diffused. The press is educating the 
world. The spirit of truth is abroad. Inspired by 
the heights that have been won, the vanguards are 
pushing on to still higher heights. Having tasted 
political liberty the masses are moving for economic 
liberty. The picture is not all bright, by any means, 
but it is growing brighter, and the fact that so 
many are aware just what produces the dark places 
is hopeful that the colors may be better blended and 
the defects removed. , , ' 

So much for the material phase of the . world 
movement. What of the spiritual? Here the pro- 
gress has not been so marked. But the very fact 
that the material base has been formed is a promise 
that the spiritual superstructure will arise. This is 
ever the case. Already the materials for that super- 
structure are being gathered. Already the thoughts 
of the best souls of the race are turning to this next 
unfoldment in the universal evolution. 

With the rapid advancement of the past century 
who can tell what ravishing prospects await the race 
in the century just opening? What new truths in 
science, what higher forms of government, what 
triumphs of peace, what wider and more brotherly 
sentiments, what greater art and beauty in the Occi- 
dent, what new awakenings in the Orient, where 



72 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

is the imagination bold enough to foreshadow 
these ? 

The universal note has been struck and its music 
cannot die out. Rather must it increase until the 
whole world is enchanted by the harmony. 



THE SOCIAL TREND 

The real progress of the race has been away from 
selfishness. The primitive man was an Ish- 
maelite, "with his hand against every man and 
every man's hand against him." He was purely 
selfish. From this state of isolation he arose first 
into the family relation, and from that by slow 
stages into the tribal. In the next epoch came small 
states; then larger and larger, until the empire had 
been evolved. At the present stage there is very 
general talk of a federation of nations. Out of this 
must grow a universal brotherhood. 

In the matter of the form of government, the pro- 
gress has been in the same direction. In the begin- 
ning the rule was purely individualistic and despotic, 
the strongest being chief. As the state grew larger, 
the chief became a king, still with absolute power. 
Later the monarch was shorn of some of this power, 
which passed to the nobles. Then national as- 
semblies were recognized. From this evolved the 
republic, where government is supposed to be com- 
mon, belonging to all the people. 

There has been a similar evolution in every de- 
partment of human activity. The tendency is 
toward a diffusion of life's blessings to all ; a move- 
ment away from exclusiveness into democracy; a 
gradual development out of the individual into the 
social idea. 

All of this is an unfoldment out of the self- 
conscious condition into the racial consciousness 
(human brotherhood and solidarity), and from that 



GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 



into the cosmical consciousness, or oneness with 
God. 

Men are struggling into harmony with each 
other and through each other into harmony with 
the Oversoul. In this drawing together Love is the 
motive power. Love pulled man out of his selfish- 
ness into family relations, then into patriotic or 
national relations, then into brotherly or racial rela- 
tions, and finally into divine or cosmic relations. 
Religion is the name given to this great movement 
of the race Godward ; and in this sense religion in- 
cludes all of human development. 

Jesus is the first who stated this divine philosophy 
in full and luminous manner. Confucius had given 
the world a system of ethics. Krishna and Buddha 
had stated a beautiful introspective philosophy, as 
had Socrates and Plato in a much more external 
way; but it waited for the Nazarene to give the 
world a practical gospel of love, faith, brother- 
hood and divine truth that in broad vision, depth 
and beauty infinitely surpasses all systems the world 
has ever seen. 

In fact, so complete a statement did Lie make 
that now, in the most enlightened age in history, 
after a study of His word extending over nineteen 
centuries, we are just beginning to comprehend 
what it means. 

There are two sides to the gospel of Jesus. The 
first, and all-inclusive, is the inner, or spiritual side ; 
and this the world has struggled after, but never 
realized. The second is the external, or social side ; 
and this, in a large measure, the world has for- 
gotten, has not even struggled after. 

These two sides are symbolized in His two com- 
mandments : First, love thy God ; second, love thy 



THE SOCIAL TREND 75 

neighbor. This external gospel He illustrated in 
many different ways : His denunciation of the rich 
as having broken the law of brotherhood and love ; 
His command to sell all outward goods and give to 
the poor; His admonition to His disciples to be as 
those who served ; His reiterated exhortation to take 
no thought of the morrow; His prayer that God's 
kingdom should come on earth; His ministrations 
to the common people and denunciation of those in 
authority — all these things point in one direction, 
and point so plainly that to any one who enters into 
their spirit, their direction becomes at once appar- 
ent. The early church symbolized the ideal in a 
more or less crude manner, when it made property 
common. In the real Christianity which is coming, 
outward conditions must be made to conform to 
inward teachings ; and this means industrial brother- 
hood — nothing less. 

It all grows so plain, so simple, so divinely 
natural. The thing the world needs is the preach- 
ing of Christ, the full, rounded gospel of Christ, 
not the shams and husks, but the sweet, spiritual 
and helpful word of the Divinest Man whose foot 
ever touched this earth. 

Humanity is a whole. It must rise or fall to- 
gether. When a civilization has gone down it has 
carried every individual with it. When a new era 
has come it has elevated all the race. 

Salvation cannot be selfish. If we are saved we 
must save others — rather we must help others to 
save themselves. If we attempt to cross the morass 
alone we shall be engulfed. We must bridge the 
swamp and go over together. 

Love helps our own souls while helping the souls 
of others. It is a mutual blessing. It cannot be 



76 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

narrow. It goes out to more than our own family 
or our own set. In its highest expression it em- 
braces all beings. It reaches to country. It is great 
enough for every class. It is wide enough for all 
Humanity. 

Kindliness is the badge of real nobility. It is the 
outward sign of inward regeneration. It is the em- 
blem of true kingliness of soul. It is the something 
of which Paul speaks, which is sometimes translated 
charity, and sometimes love. It is the hall mark 
of the inner temple into which the divine has entered. 
It is the quality that indicates the genuine gentle- 
man. 

We have been trying to salve our consciences by 
little charities. These are very well, if they are 
given in the right spirit; if they proceed from love 
rather than from a selfish desire to win applause or 
to square ourselves. But mere almsgiving alone is 
only the kindergarten of philanthropy. Some people 
give as they would throw a bone to a dog. Their 
contemptuous attitude neutralizes the good of the 
gift. Others give expecting a return. Others yet, 
because it is fashionable. A few, because they want 
to help their fellows; and with these their love is 
more precious than their money. 

The sort of giving that makes its object depend- 
ent is unwise. The bone-to-the-dog variety of char- 
ity always has this effect. No man can take alms 
offered in such spirit and retain his self respect. Do 
you call it helping a fellow-being to give him a 
meal and kill his manhood; to feed his body and 
blight his soul? Better show him a spirit of 
brotherhood, make him feel that you are interested 
in him, stir his better nature, set him on the high- 
way and help him to help himself. Better still, do 



THE SOCIAL TREND TJ 

your part toward making the conditions of society 
such that each can work who wants to work and 
that none who work will need alms. 

The social and industrial problem- is coming more 
and more to the front. It will not down. It cannot 
be evaded. Palliatives will not settle it. Charities 
will not satisfy it. It has arisen because our laws 
and our customs are not in harmony with truth. 
We must meet it. Prejudice and abuse will but 
aggravate it. Force will make of it a monster that 
will wreck our institutions. Love, good will and 
wisdom only will render it harmless. Justice only 
will remove it. We are out of concord with divine 
purposes. We must readjust ourselves to the laws 
of God, which are the laws of our being. We must 
remove these conditions which have grown out of 
individual and class selfishness. We must come into 
harmony w T ith the Christ spirit, and we can only do 
that by inaugurating a system founded on the 
brotherhood of man. 

We have been doctoring effects instead of causes. 
We must go to the root of matters. We must reach 
fundamentals. The awakening conscience of the 
age will not be satisfied with mere patchwork. The 
structure of the future must be built on the rock of 
truth, and we must be the builders. 

The world may be likened to a great ship. There 
is plenty of room on board for all to ride in com- 
fort. But a few have taken the cabins and all the 
desirable quarters. This forces the many to ride 
as steerage passengers, while the weak and unfortu- 
nate are crowded off into the waves. We are not 
doing justice by these to simply throw them crumbs. 
We must get the selfishness out of our hearts, open 
up the cabins and give all those on board a chance. 



78 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

If we do not — well, some day we may find them 
battering down the doors. For injustice breeds 
injustice. 

The slum$ are in our midst. They are festering 
sores that indicate a disease of the body politic. 
Salves will not cure them. They are caused by the 
microbes of greed in the blood of the patient. The 
social body is sick. Here is a case for Christ heal- 
ing. The only thing that will cure this malady is an 
injection of the essence of love. 

We take a wrong view of wealth. It was never 
intended for mere selfish aggrandizement. It is the 
product of the labor of the mass. Those who hold 
it hold it only in trust for the good of the mass. 
Any other attitude is false, and this falsehood has 
produced most of the other falsehoods in our eco- 
nomic system. 

The least of these, His brethren and our brethren ! 
What can we do for them ? This : Take the 
shackles off their limbs and give them a chance. 
What more can we do for them ? This : Give them 
a little love and brotherly kindness. Quit treating 
them as outcasts. What more can we do for them? 
This : Minister unto them, go to them in prison, 
visit them in sickness, scatter sunshine before their 
feet, quit condemning them and help them to know 
they are men and women. 

Wherever a human being is, there is our other 
self. He cannot be degraded without degrading us. 

The Christ is the vine and we are the branches. 
Any injury we inflict on any of these branches is an 
injury to Him and to us. "As ye do it even unto 
the least of these ye do it unto Me." 

Society is an organism and we are all linked to- 
gether by an invisible chain. 



THE SOCIAL TREND 79 

It is the sense of self that separates us from each 
other and from God. It is this false selfism that 
has made all of the horrible conditions in the world 
to-day. We can only overcome it by love, by rising 
into the Christ consciousness and by incarnating the 
Christ spirit in the social body. 

We are children of one Father. We walk on 
one planet. We are warmed by one sunlight. We 
breathe one atmosphere. We are animated by one 
life. 

What is good for all is good for each. What 
injures all injures each. Greater than the personal 
is the race. More important than the individual is 
society. 

Lincoln once said that "God must love the com- 
mon people, or He would not have made so many 
of them." Some one else put it that "God is no 
respecter of persons/' Like the sunlight, He has 
the same beneficence for all. "He maketh His rain 
to fall on the just and on the unjust." His love 
goes out to ievery isoul. He excludes none. He is 
as impartial as the air. He is over all, sustaining 
all, in all. If one is apparently exalted, it is that he 
may be an instrument to do good for the rest. 

The progress of the world has been toward the 
recognition of the people, rather than the centering 
of all in some one man. In other words, the rights 
of the whole public are rising superior to the privi- 
leges of any certain portion of the public. As 
Tennyson phrases it: 

"And the individual withers and the race is more 
and more." 

The world is moving away from monarchy to 
democracy. The great man is not being debased, 
but all men are being exalted. We do not love the 



80 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

one less, but the all more. We have not ceased 
from hero worship, but we begin to find the hero in 
every man. We do not believe less in the divinity 
of Christ, but more in the divinity of humanity. 
What we see in a single soul we see, potentially at 
least, in every soul. 

Here is the spirit of the modern idea. It is ex- 
pressed in a thousand ways, but all are from the 
same impulse. Sometimes it is called unity, some- 
times equality, sometimes brotherhood, sometimes 
democracy, sometimes love; but whatever called, 
it is a phase of the one great world movement. 
It is expressed in co-operation, in centralization, in 
larger nations, in a more cosmopolitan and liberal 
spirit. It is obliterating faction, party, sect and 
even national lines. It is making the race one 
family. 

All this marks the passing out of selfishness. Not 
in a day or a year, but gradually and surely. The 
icy shells of division are melting away under the 
sunshine of love. The sense of separateness and 
aloofness is disappearing. The feeling of oneness, 
and comradeship is becoming more and more dom- 
inant. 

This is the force that is to transform the world. 
It is of the essence of Christianity. It is in all the 
new thought movements, in all the new fraternal 
movements, in all the new political movements. It 
is drawing men together in spite of themselves. It 
is making them better neighbors, better husbands, 
better fathers. 

This is the undercurrent of modern thought ; yes, 
and it is becoming the upper current as well. With 
every year it gains momentum and volume. Ulti- 



THE SOCIAL TREND 8 1 

mately, all that is not in harmony with it, that would 
impede it, will be swept away. 

We are rising more and more to the selfless and 
impersonal plane — rather from the narrower to the 
broader conception of the self. We have ceased to 
see our own good as something in opposition to the 
good of others and have come to see it as a part 
of the good of others. We appreciate ourselves 
more by appreciating others more. It is the univer- 
sal in us that is finding voice. But that same uni- 
versal is in the man across the street. 

A principle is impersonal. It belongs to one as 
much as another. It belongs to him most who most 
belongs to it, who is most loyal to it. Good is a 
principle. It should be loved because it is good. 

The right thing is the only thing worth while. 
Wrong is a negation, a subtraction from our attain- 
ment and happiness. We talk of self-denial, but we 
deny ourselves of the thing that is not for us in 
order that we may have more abundantly of the 
thing that is for us. In the real sense, the only self- 
denial is in doing evil. That does take away from 
us actually. But to deny yourself a thing that 
injures you only adds to you. To injure another 
is to injure yourself, for action and reaction are 
equal. So that to refrain from injuring another 
actually helps yourself. To put aside an evil or 
unworthy thing is but the removing of an obstacle 
from out your path, so that you may climb the more 
readily. 

This, in a way, is the selfish view of the case. 
You do right because that furnishes you most happi- 
ness. But there is an instinct in your soul that tells 
you to do good without stopping to consider what 
its effect on you will be; to do good because it is 



82 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

good; to do good for the good's sake. And this is 
the proper motive from which to act. This takes 
out of it the element of self-seeking, and puts it on 
the impersonal plane of acting from a principle. 
In this case we help others because we love them 
and want to make them happy. We act for the 
benefit of all, because our hearts go out to all and 
we would give them a blessing. 

When we act on this higher plane we are ex- 
pressing our better natures, our souls. We are 
coming into harmony with the laws of our own 
being. We are shifting our point of motive from 
the brute self to the divine self. We are gaining 
harmony between the different elements of our own 
nature. We are making the lion and lamb, as both 
are expressed within us, lie down together. We 
are passing from a dual, warring nature into one 
nature at peace with itself. 

This is the highest wisdom. This alone is worth 
while. This is making the intellect to serve the 
spirit, reason to support faith, the outer a symbol 
of the inner. The soul is satisfied and the flesh 
ceases to rebel, for it is better off than before. From 
discord we pass to concord, which is unity. 

The knowledge of all these things is innate in 
each one of us. If we but listen to the still, small 
voice we realize the truth without being told it by 
another. All seeming good that is not in con- 
formity with this real good is a delusion. There is 
no truth but truth. That truth is in our own souls ; 
and if we but hearken to its promptings it will show 
us the way. 

Good is its own reward. The lesson of living is 
to learn how to do good for its own sake. 

This is the voice of the larger self which seeks 
the well being of all humanity. 



i 



THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 

The social atmosphere is surcharged with storm. 
Men feel the sense of an impending something, 
they know not what. There is a world-wide 
uneasiness, a restlessness that flows backward and 
forward like waves upon the human sea. 

Religiously, sociologically and industrially the 
world is in a state of chaos. Masses of men have 
suddenly concluded that old standards are inade- 
quate, that old customs are outgrown. The wrong 
is seen, and there is a blind groping for the right. 
Alleged prophets are crying, "Lo, here," and "Lo, 
there," but. humanity is still waiting for the voice 
that it will instinctively feel is that of the true 
leader. 

The fountains of the great deep are broken up, 
On the horizon the clouds are massing and the 
people look apprehensively at the gathering storm. 
It may pass off in refreshing rains, leaving the air 
again clear and pure, or it may be crammed with 
cyclone, with ruin and destruction in its path. 

It does not follow that the storm will break at 
once. In the long range of history ten or twenty 
years are but as a few hours. Or there may be no 
storm. These massed-up mental energies may ex- 
pend themselves in renewed and enlarged activities. 
But no one can doubt that they are present. 

Change is everywhere manifest. Nothing seems 
stable; everything is drifting. In the religious 
world large groups are doubting, questioning. 
Numberless new isms are springing into being. 



84 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

Great masses of the people are without church af- 
filiation. Creeds are everywhere being discarded. 
Ministers are breaking away. The pulpit is being 
liberalized. Beliefs of a quarter or half century 
ago no longer have any force. Science is under- 
mining the walls of ancient theology. Scholars are 
searching into all the religions of the earth. The 
mental world is suffocating under low-hanging 
clouds of skepticism and materialism. 

In the political world the face of the map has 
suddenly changed. The money influence has be- 
come predominant, and that within a few years. 
Wholesale charges of corruption are heard, from 
the national government down to the municipal. 
Even the courts, ordinarily held sacred, are not 
free from the taint. And under it all is heard the 
growing mutter of socialism. 

In the industrial sphere the transformation also 
is apparent. Gigantic combinations of capital, 
trusts, control avenues of production and distribu- 
tion. Labor is forming itself into armies that grow 
larger and more compact with the years. The bil- 
lionaire has appeared. A few men control most 
of the industries. A few families own most of the 
wealth. Class consciousness is being aroused, and 
that always means danger. 

In the social realm the transition is seen. Mar- 
riage ties are more lightly broken than ever before. 
The intermingling of the sexes is freer. Women 
are assuming the positions and doing the work of 
men, and are looking more and more on life through 
men's eyes. Some social students think the home 
itself is threatened. However this may be, it is 
certain that old standards and ideas are being 
abandoned. 



THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 85 

Quo vadis, domine? Which way? Where is the 
leader to show us? Where is the goal? What is 
the end? 

We are not even in the formative stage. We are 
in the breaking-up period, in the chaotic interval 
preceding the new alignments. We have seen the 
symptoms of the disease, but have only vague ideas 
of the cause or the cure. 

Optimism does not consist in shutting your eyes 
to conditions as they are. It is shown rather in 
facing the worst, while working and hoping for 
the best. 

We have faith that over all the darkness will 
break the light ; that out of all this unrest will come 
the truth. 

There are two great, antagonistic forces at work. 
Broadly stated, they are represented by the terms 
altruism and selfishness. Differently phrased, they 
are brotherhood against greed, liberty against 
despotism, equal rights against special privilege, 
democracy against aristocracy, spirituality against 
materialism, God against mammon. 

These two powers, in some form or another, under 
various banners, but always actuated by the same 
spirit, have battled all through the centuries. The 
hosts of darkness have often seemed triumphant; 
yet despite all reverses, the armies of light have 
gradually won their way. 

It may have been a Moses leading a race of 
slaves from bondage; it may have been a handful 
of Greeks turning back the multitudinous hosts of 
a Xerxes. It may have been a Demosthenes hurl- 
ing his defiance at Philip. It may have been a 
Socrates teaching the truth while looking calmly 
at death. It may have been a Christ giving his life 






86 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

for his ideals of faith and love. It may have been a 
Galileo holding aloft a new torch of science. It 
may have been a Mirabeau thundering against a 
debauched monarchy. It may have been a Wash- 
ington guiding his ragged soldiers to a new re- 
public. Or it may have been a Lincoln extending 
liberty to a humble race. But wherever and when- 
ever it was, the same better element fought against 
the baser desires of human nature. 

Has the struggle ended? Are there no more 
marches to be made, no more heights to be won? 
Is this contest which has grown with the increasing 
intelligence of the race, to cease now in the world's 
most enlightened age ? Or are the forces gathering 
strength for one more onslaught, which will dwarf 
all that has gone before? 

Can the contest ever cease so long as one injustice 
is left for overthrow, so long as one evil remains 
for righting? 

The currents and undercurrents of the world were 
never moving so swiftly as to-day. Never was an 
age so electrified by new thoughts and aspirations. 
Never did Destiny seem so at work shaping gigan- 
tic issues. Never was Greed more insolent and 
never were the people so awake to their own 
strength. Never did the captain of industry possess 
more far-reaching power, and never was Labor so 
united and aggressive. Never were there such 
activities and never was there such a searching for 
the truth, such a purpose to find the right way. 

Do all these things mean nothing? Are all these 
prodigious movements to attain no goal? Are all 
the new seeds being sown to bear no fruit ? 

It will not do to ignore the possibilities before us. 
Only the blind do that. Self-satisfied complacency 



THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 87 

belongs to the brute rather than to the man — the 
child of the divine and the heir of the ages. With 
him should be a noble discontent and a reaching 
after better things. Had these impulses not existed 
within him, there would have been no Sinai, no 
Calvary, no Marathon, no Bunker Hill. 

What are the signs of the times ? 

Read them, O young man, with the world's 
greatest century before you. Note the marshaling 
of the hosts of Greed and the armies of Industry. 
Behold the world filled with a new thought, a new 
dream, a new Christ-ideal. See the great Republic 
rising into a position of leadership while the mon- 
archies of the old world look on with a growing 
concern. Observe the foundations of ancient 
theories and creeds being broken up, while the out- 
lines of a larger faith and purpose gradually come 
into view. What does it all portend ? What is the 
focal point toward which all the new currents are 
flowing ? 

In the long day of history, a decade is but an 
hour. This is the lull before the storm. The great- 
est conflict the world has ever seen is before us — a 
conflict between the old forces of light and dark- 
ness. It may not be a contest of arms — God grant 
that it will not — but it will be none the less real 
because of that. The future conflicts of the world 
will be rather between the invisible forces of thought 
than between the palpable forces of material war- 
fare. 

One of the ends of this struggle will be to set the 
wage slave free. There is no good of shutting our 
eyes to this phase of the question. It is a funda- 
mental principle. Any man has a right to that which 
he produces or its exact equivalent. If he is forced 



88 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

to give to another a portion of this product, in that 
far is he a slave. Statistics prove that Labor pro- 
duces several times the amount it receives in return 
wages. We need no further proof of this than the 
fabulous fortunes the exploiters of the people build 
up. To this extent is Labor enslaved. Did you say 
this is voluntary? In form, yes. In substance, no. 
For the man of toil must live. Need and the cries 
of his little ones force him into the avenues that 
offer. 

Why should the forces of uplift, the lovers of 
humanity, the strivers for better things be divided 
on any pretense? We may be apart on a thousand 
little shades of belief. What do they matter? Are 
we together on the main question of God against 
mammon? If so, let us join hands. For the time 
is coming when we may be needed to render real 
service with the living hosts of light. 



THE MASTER BUILDER 

The world is full of correspondences, of symbols 
on one plane representing things on another 
plane. In this way very many spiritual truths 
are expressed by means of symbol, or parable. 

While it is an historical fact that Jesus of Naza- 
reth was a carpenter in his early years, the mere 
historical significance of this fact is entirely over- 
shadowed by its symbolical interpretation. It must 
be remembered that nothing happens by accident; 
and especially is this true of a life so divinely 
ordered as that of the Galilean. In this light, even 
the minutest detail is important. It is a part of the 
plan and corresponds to every other part. The 
early work of the Master was thus prophetic of his 
later and greater work. He was the builder in his 
youth, and he was the Builder in his manhood. 
From wielding the hatchet and saw he came to be 
the artificer with tools not made with hands. From 
helping to erect houses that would stand for a little 
and then fall, he later erected houses whose founda- 
tion was the Rock and whose duration was eternal. 
He thus became the great constructor, the Master 
Builder. 

Since that day great cities have crumbled, em- 
pires have fallen away and the proudest works of 
man have vanished like a dream; but the structure 
erected by the Carpenter of Nazareth has remained 
in strength and beauty. Race after race has come 
to see it, billions have knelt before its portals and 
the foremost nations of the earth have been clustered 



90 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

round about it. It has been the haven of refuge 
of the poor, the weary and the broken-hearted. It 
has been a shelter in time of storm for those who 
had been beaten about by the winds of circumstance 
and of human wrong. Above the clamor and tur- 
moil, above tempest and battle, above earthquake 
and destruction, it has stood unmoved and im- 
movable, 

"Towering o'er the wrecks of Time/' 

Founded upon the granite of the spirit, with its 
floor of faith, its pillars of truth, its walls of love 
and its roof of heaven, it has been the veritable 
Temple of God in the City of Man. 

Of the Architect, why sound the praises here ? He 
does not need them. He is secure from either praise 
or blame. It is we who need, we who are groping 
about in the darkness of unconsciousness, we who 
still imagine we must divide into classes and fight 
each other, we who make our god of material, who 
worship the seeming instead of the substance. The 
Christ potentiality is in all of us, but we have not 
discovered it, we have not awakened, we do not 
know. We yet scramble for the gifts of Mammon, 
for the amount of recompense that shall be given 
us in return for our self-imposed slavery. It is we 
who need, not praise, but love; not material pos- 
sessions, but faith; not man-made knowledge, but 
truth. 

The Christ lives now, the Infinite Spirit of God- 
in-Man. If we could but turn to this reality and 
cease chasing shadows; if we could but see the 
eternal verity beyond the illusions ; if we could but 
realize the freely given wealth of our Father ; if we 
but had a grain of faith to do His will and trust 



THE MASTER BUILDER gi 

Him for the ways and means, the struggle and the 
conflict, the disappointments and the heartches 
would be ended for us forever. 

He taught us many things, this Builder of our 
Temple. He taught us that the Christ-life may be 
lived upon earth. He taught us that Paradise is not 
afar, but that heaven is within us. He taught us 
that we live in the eternal Now — if we are but con- 
scious. He taught us that the Father will provide 
for those who trust on Him. He taught us not to 
resist each other, but to put away strife; and most 
of all he taught us that Love is the Way of Life. 

He lived in the constructive principle. He never 
denied, he never doubted, he never tore down. He 
did not indulge in negations. He did not argue, 
he did not contend, he did not condemn. He was 
always in the positive attitude. He stated, and the 
truth in his statement was its own proof. The 
things of the earth he rated only as the things of 
the earth, as form and function that come and go. 
But souls he recognized as the substance of Being; 
and he was here that he might feed them the bread 
of life. 

If we might only realize these truths, instead of 
merely stating them; if we might be conscious in 
our souls, instead of merely assenting with our in- 
tellects, then would we know the substance from 
shadow and the real riches of character from the 
apparent riches of circumstance. Then would we 
cease arraying man against man, faction against 
faction, and hate against hate. Then would we 
cease prizing that which turns to dust and ashes and 
fighting for that which cannot satisfy. We would 
then know that the only world worth winning is 
the world within; and that we already have this 



92 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

world as soon as we are conscious of our real 
selves. 

The Master Builder was a toiler. He knew 
that the workers on any plane are the only ones 
who produce on that plane. He knew that service, 
not the service of compulsion, but the service of love, 
is divine. He taught that only by works can faith 
become manifest in life. 

He yet lives, utterly merged in his Father, utterly 
one with the Spirit of Truth. His message comes 
to us now. He yet is building, building the Temple 
of Love. He is not away from us, he is one with 
us. We come closest to Him by coming closest to 
our own souls. 

He is the apostle of love, the one constructive 
force. Herein is His glory. Herein is His power 
over the hearts of men. Other teachers have 
charmed the world with their philosophy, others 
have presented the truths of ethics, have laid bare 
the secrets of the soul; but none other ever incar- 
nated Love as did the Nazarene. For this reason 
He has conquered and will continue to conquer the 
world. Unresisting and uncondemning, He is in 
very truth the Lamb of God; and before Him the 
lion of war will finally come in complete surrender. 

The world has called him impractical, a dreamer. 
Yet may it not be possible that it was Christ who 
was truly practical, and that it has been the world 
that has done the dreaming — and, too, that its 
dreams have been nightmares of error, of false self- 
consciousness, of shadows, of passions and preju- 
dices and of the husks of life instead of the sub- 
stance? Is it not possible that the world is so in- 
fatuated with its material delusion that it does not 
see His spiritual reality ? Is it not possible that the 



THE MASTER BUILDER 93 

world is to find that after all it was mistaken and 
that He really saw the way — the way that the world 
itself must take before it reaches any real height. 

A dreamer, was He ? Mediocrity has called every 
genius a dreamer. Ignorance has called every 
philosopher a dreamer. Blindness has called every 
prophet a dreamer. Sloth has called every reformer 
a dreamer, or something worse. The Old, standing 
among its fetich-worship and its relics from the 
past, has hurled its sneer at the open-eyed New, 
"You are a dreamer/' 

A dreamer, was He? And yet His dream has 
overturned empires and systems. The paganism of 
Greece, of Rome and of the North fell before it. It 
spread over all the civilizations of Europe; found a 
new land and a new home beyond the sea; and is 
just now winning its way against the older religions 
of the Orient. 

A dreamer, was He? Yet against His dream 
the onslaughts of materialistic philosophy have been 
made for nineteen hundred years; His disciples 
have been fed to wild beasts and burned at the 
stake ; professed followers have misrepresented Him 
and loaded down His pure, spiritual faith with a 
mass of formality and rubbish; yet in spite of all 
the opposition, the obscuration and mystification, 
He has a firmer hold on the world than ever before. 

A dreamer, was He? Yet to-day the few minds 
are just beginning to realize the wonderful mean- 
ing and scope of that dream; His healing is again 
being practiced; great forces are springing up to 
put His social ideas into action; His truth is being 
revitalized by a spiritual renaissance ; and the world 
is just now gaining ravishing glimpses of a real 
Christian era ahead. 



94 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

A dreamer, was He? Yet His dream was the 
sweetest and most beautiful vision that ever ap- 
peared to the human race; and it is coming true. 

O Galileean ! Long hast thou been misrepresent- 
ed both by friend and foe. Despised and almost 
alone in Judea, Thy faith has grown till its devotees 
are laboring in all the earth. At last through the 
long night of persecution and abuse, it has come to 
the dawn of its triumph. It has survived the attacks 
of its enemies ; and even more marvelous still, it has 
survived the barnacles who have fastened themselves 
upon it for selfish and class ends. It throve despite 
the war made upon it by the anti-Christ ; it throve 
even through the far more dangerous embrace of 
that anti-Christ. And it is carrying forward its 
gospel of regeneration, of health and of social 
brotherhood until with them it shall conquer the 
world. 



TRUE CHRISTIANITY 

The dominant need of a soul is that it have ex- 
pression. The entire universe is one of mani- 
festation, of expression. The spirit enters a 
body, lives a life, speaks, writes, does things to ex- 
press itself. 

So it is with true Christianity. It must express 
itself, must be made applicable. The man who truly 
is regenerated must let the light that is in him shine 
forth. He cannot live to himself alone. 

The new birth is of such reality that when a man 
receives it, there is a wider horizon about 
him; he looks on a different world; the bitterness 
goes out of his soul, and love takes its place. He 
sees that life means infinitely more than he had 
dreamed. 

Such a soul cannot selfishly keep the peace, the 
power and the light that have come to him. He 
must speak out. He must tell the glad tidings. He 
must live the message in his life. He must impart 
to others this joy that is like a fountain of blessing 
within him. 

If you have the light, you cannot hide it under the 
bushel of your own selfishness; for if you do, it 
will go out. 

The faith that is a living, real faith will be mani- 
fested in works. It will be felt as a power for good 
in the world. It will not be content with merely 
giving alms, that oft times injure their recipients 
more than they help. It will throw itself into move- 



g6 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

ments of uplift. It will help along to the better era 
that lies ahead. 

The time has come for applied Christianity. 

The world has been splitting hairs over theologi- 
cal dogmas too long. 

The time has come -when it would get into the 
spirit and life of the Master. It is ready to leave 
all the rubbish and non-essentials, in order to grow 
closer to the simple, genuine gospels that He gave 
to us. 

Under present conditions the individual may live 
the Christian life; but society, which is an entity in 
itself, cannot. The time has come for an economic 
and industrial system of such a character that the 
Christ-ideal can be followed by the social organism. 

There is no question but that a man may be what 
he wills to be — provided his will is strong enough. 
Environment is an outward circumstance. It can- 
not rule the inward soul. And yet environment is 
a most potent factor. Put around the average man 
a thoroughly anti-Christ environment, such as our 
present system affords, and in four cases out of five 
he will follow the environment. He may pretend 
not to do so, but in his heart of hearts he knows 
that the ruling power of his life is the appeal to his 
selfishness, made by conditions around him, rather 
than the dream of the Nazarene, the High Priest of 
Unselfishness. 

The true Christianity will manifest itself in the 
life of the world. It will be expressed in politics, 
in industrial conditions, and in the social equation. 
It will strive to make an environment in conformity 
to itself. It will seek to incarnate the Christ spirit 
in the body of society. 

True Christianity is a practical religion. It is a 



TRUE CHRISTIANITY 97 

religion which men can take into their daily lives, 
into their homes, into their work, into their poli- 
tics. It is a religion which will make better hus- 
bands and wives, better fathers and mothers, better 
sons and daughters, better friends and neighbors, 
better citizens. It is a religion of kindliness and 
gentleness, of mercy and forbearance. Yet it is a 
religion of manliness, of courage in the right, of 
steadfastness for principle. 

It is a rational religion. It requires no theologi- 
cal flummery, no hypocrisy nor cant; but rather 
inspires a man to speak out the honest thought that 
is in him. 

It is a cheerful religion. It requires no pretension 
nor long-faced solemnity, but about it is an atmos- 
phere of gladness and joy. In it are laughter and 
happiness, outward sunshine and inward peace. 

It is not a religion of superstition, but of en- 
lightenment. It does not antagonize physical sci- 
ence, for it does not enter that realm; but it relates 
rather to the deeper science of the soul and the rela- 
tion of man to man. 

It is not a religion of creeds and sects, but is uni- 
versal. It is as broad as the world and as liberal as 
the light. There is room in it for the good of all 
systems of thought, and contained in it is the spirit 
of all reform. 

It is not a religion of division and bickering, but 
of faith and unity ; not of fault-finding, but of toler- 
ance; not of dogmas, but of love. 

True Christianity! The world is only coming 
to it. While we are sending missionaries to all 
lands and races, we are just beginning to be con- 
verted ourselves. We only see the first radiance 
of the new dawn that is to flood the world with 



98 glimpses of the real 

light. When the day has fully come the Christ shall 
be seen for what He is — the regenerator and re- 
deemer of the world, here and now, the glorious rep- 
resentative of the divinity in man. In that day all 
peoples shall bow at His shrine — Buddhist and Tao- 
ist, Brahman and Confucian, Mohammedan and 
heathen, Christian and infidel, old thought and new 
thought. All will be united in His name, in the 
new religion of humanity, in the church universal, 
in the brotherhood of man. 

True Christianity ! It is typed in the regenerated 
soul, the soul that has awakened to the conscious- 
ness of its immortality and of its sonship. This is 
the heritage of which the Master came to tell us. 
He was the perfect and measureless expression of 
that immortality and that sonship. The new reali- 
zation that is coming into the world does not make 
Him less divine, but makes Man more divine. He 
called Himself the Son of Man and also the Son of 
God. But He also said that He was the vine of 
which we are the branches. The branch is* a part 
of the vine and is one with it. Therefore we, the 
sons of Man, may become the sons of God when 
we awaken in the Christ consciousness which is the 
new birth. This is regeneration, that fills us with 
a new spirit, that makes us see a new earth without 
and a new heaven within us. 

True Christianity! It must be applied to the 
outward life of the world. The highest expression 
of the awakened soul is in works. Without this ex- 
pression there is nothing. Love is the law, helpful 
love. There can be no such thing as selfish salva- 
tion. We must be saved together, so that each will 
have his salvation in the salvation of his brother. 
We must make the outward manifestation conform 



TRUE CHRISTIANITY 99 

to the inward dream. Our work will never be done 
until we have a civilization that is the perfect ex- 
pression of God's kingdom on earth, until the 
Golden Rule becomes the recognized law, until 
Caste and War and Greed, with their mother, Sel- 
fishness, have ceased to* be the real rulers of men. 

The Christ- faith must be applied to every depart- 
ment and avenue of life, the Christ-soul must be in- 
carnate in the body of society, the Christ-dream 
must come true in the co-operative commonwealth, 
before the. era of genuine Christianity can come into 
the world. 

We must heal the individual and social body ; and 
healing means simply bringing into conformity with 
the divine. We must once again supply the chords 
that have been left out of the Christian harmony. 
We cannot play the Master's symphony on an in- 
strument in which some of the notes have been de- 
stroyed. We need the full scale, from the deepest 
note of spirituality to the highest one of loving 
service. The need of the age is Christ's entire mes- 
sage, a thing that has never been given to the world. 
Not in the letter, but in the spirit; not simply as a 
beautiful theory, but as a truth to be applied in its 
fulness to everyday life. 

That is the keynote of the new message. It will 
be repeated until it is heard and heeded. No neglect 
or misrepresentation can keep it back. No pro- 
fessedly Christian institution can ignore it. No 
opposition can kill it. It has sounded and its tones 
will never die out. For it is of God. 

The writer has no quarrel with orthodoxy. He 
believes the great masses in all the churches are 
struggling onward to Christ's kingdom on earth. He 
only quarrels with the sectarian strife, with the 

Lore. 



100 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

spirit of mammonism that has crept in, with the 
magnifying of man-made creeds, with the failure 
to preach the truths Christ preached. He quarrels 
with the formality, with the intolerance, with the 
insincerity, that are too often apparent. But with 
the church, no. He would have it grow greater, 
broader, better. He would have it become a united 
body, with 'Christ and humanity as its only creed. 
He would have it with less show and luxury and 
more spirituality; with less of mammonism and 
more of God. 

He has no quarrel with the many schools of new 
thought. He is not a Christian Scientist, nor a 
Spiritualist, nor a Theosophist, nor any other ist. 
Yet he sees good in all of them, and is willing to 
overlook what seems to him to be bad. He only 
condemns the fakery, the charlatanism, the fine-spun 
and non-essential theories, the extremism, that are 
in them. He believes that the masses in these new 
sects are sincerely struggling after truth, and that 
sooner or later they will find it. He believes the 
new came because the old was not giving the full 
message; that each is necessary to the other, and 
that the true in both will harmonize in the perfect 
Christianity that is coming. 

He has no quarrel with any religion, so long as 
it is trying to make the world better — so long as it 
is trying to bring God's kingdom on earth. 

He only wishes that all sects may cease fighting 
each other and may join together in the work of 
uplifting mankind. 

It is the letter that kills but the spirit that giveth 
life. Read the gospels of Christ. Study them over 
and over again. Discern them spiritually, and 
finally you will see that they are the symbol of a 



TRUE CHRISTIANITY 101 

great and underlying truth. You will discover in 
them the hidden, secret fountain of love and life and 
joy. Let their lesson sink into your heart and be- 
come a part of your life. Delve into them yet more 
deeply, for they will take a lifetime's study. And 
finally, through them, you will begin to discern a 
vast, new • country, . the beauty of which you had 
never before dreamed, that stretches away and away, 
beyond your farthest imagination, and that contains 
mines of truth which surpass your understanding. 
You will begin to realize that our world is but form 
and symbol of the spiritual world that is behind it. 
You will begin to understand the meaning of love 
and unity and faith, for they are one. You will 
begin to apprehend what Christ meant wh^n He 
said that faith can do all things. . You will begin 
to see God's kingdom, whose representative Jesus 
was, and you will discover with joy that it is not afar 
off, but that it is all around us and in us ; that it is a 
part of us and we of it ; that all the universe is one, 
ruled by love and law, and that we, even. we, are 
the children of God. 

Never in the world has there been such an awaken- 
ing to Christ's real gospel as now. Don't you feel 
it? If not, you are out of touch with the spirit of 
the age. All the nations are becoming electrified 
by it. The world's literature, its sociology, its 
thought, all are full of it. 



THE GOSPEL OF JOY 

Most people desire to be practical. They pre- 
fer concrete deeds to abstract theories. They 
believe in a faith that does things. They 
would rather see a man taken out of the gutter and 
set upon the way of life than to hear a sermon. The 
religion that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, 
lifts up the fallen, spreads sunshine in the hearts of 
men and makes the world more gentle and loving 
is the religion that appeals to the average man. 

All this is as it should be. The gospel of deeds 
is the gospel we need. But this is only half the 
truth. We must have the inward ideal before we 
have the outward manifestation. The house before 
it takes form in brick and mortar first exists in the 
architect's brain. The steam engine came into being 
in the mind of James Watt. The various improve- 
ments on it have had their birth in the thoughts of 
other inventors. The locomotive began its career 
in the ideal of George Stephenson. The steamboat, 
the telegraph, all else in human achievement is first 
born in thought. Before we can have works we 
must have faith. Before we can bless our fellow 
man we must be filled with blessing. 

The crowning glory of this civilization is that it 
performs. It expresses itself in tangible results. It 
is executive rather than meditative. It is strenuous 
rather than introspective. But extremes are always 
false. We may insist so much on the outer that 
we come to ignore the inner. This is one-sided. 
Both should be cultivated. We should both dream 



THE GOSPEL OF JOY 103 

and do. He who sees how to make inventions and 
never, makes them is of as little use as he who does 
things in the hardest ways with no thought as to the 
improvement of methods. 

The materialist is only half a man. He leaves out 
one whole side of his being. But the monk who 
shuts himself in a cell to see visions and never gives 
the world the benefit of anything he sees is little 
better. We need the balance between the two. We 
want the faith and we demand the works. 

In our Western civilization we are given too 
much to the objective. In the Oriental civilization 
they are given too much to the subjective. What 
we need is a combination of the two. This will give 
to the West more of the introspective, meditative, 
religious element and to the East more of the active, 
progressive, practical element. Out of the union 
will come the greatest civilization the world has 
known. 

We have our share of the materialistic attitude. 
To be well balanced we must have the spiritual. 
We need the transcendentalist. We need those who 
will awaken the sleeping soul. We may pooh-pooh 
them, but we will return to them, for our inner 
natures are hungry for what they have to give. 

There were plenty of people in Greece who did 
things, but Socrates and Plato, who merely taught 
ideals, shine out above them all. India was full of 
those who wrought, but Gautama, with his trans- 
cendent dreams, is the only one whose light reaches 
us. Judea never lacked those who fought and who 
delved, but the truths taught by the Nazarene are 
so glorious we scarcely see the others. England 
has had mighty men, but Shakespeare, with the 
world in his brain, o'ertops them all. The time will 



104 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

come in our history when many we call our great 
will sink into pigmies beside the thinkers, Whitman 
and Emerson. 

Whatever is in the inner will be bodied forth in 
the outer, so that he is the greatest benefactor who 
does most to uplift our ideals and awaken our better 
natures. 

A friend has asked how to come into the proper 
state to appreciate the higher things of life. Why, 
bless you, give your soul a chance. Get awake in- 
side. Realize that living means something more 
than bread and butter and dollars. The pig exists 
for these things, but a man does not need to keep 
himself in the consciousness of the pig. Realize that 
you are an immortal, not a mere animal. Think 
from the soul, instead of from the back of your 
head. Realize that you are the master of environ- 
ments, not they the master of you. Come into the 
full consciousness once that you are a spirit possess- 
ing a body, a son of God with a glorious heritage. 
You have but to remember and quit feeding on 
husks with the swine. Remember ! Remember who 
you are and from whence you come. You are not 
a worm of the dust, but a child of the king. Think 
not too meanly of yourself. Remember the Christ 
bore the same form you bear. Remember the breath 
of God is in your nostrils, the spirit of God is in 
your soul. Awaken! Awaken! Quit regretting 
what is over and worrying about what is to come. 
Find life in the to-day. Universal faith and love 
and truth are for you if you will but claim them. 
Stop being buffeted and made unhappy by mere 
circumstances. You are not a slave or a puppet. 
You are master of your own world. Jov is yours. 



THE GOSPEL OF JOY 105 

You are consciously immortal. In your soul is a 
bubbling spring of the waters of life. 

There is sunshine in tlie world. In spite of all 
that is said by the pessimists, dyspeptics and weak- 
lings, it is good to be here. In the golden mean, 
in the legitimate use of all things, there is a tem- 
pered joy that is worth while. None is so happy 
as he that is in the path of right and truth. The 
awakened soul, with face turned ever to the light of 
God, is full of thanksgiving and rejoicing. He 
comes to see the beauty and gladness of the world. 
He finds duty a pleasure; heaven a present state of 
consciousness; work a recreation; life a song. Evil 
has lost its power upon him, for the desire of it is 
gone; fear has faded like a shadow that has no 
place in the full spiritual sunlight; death is seen to 
be but another phase of life; God is felt as the all 
in all, everywhere present, everywhere active, every- 
where beneficent. 

The true religious life is the gladdest life in the 
world. It finds the real pleasures that never pall. 
It is manful, wholesome, companionable. It does 
not separate itself from mankind, has no holier- 
than-thou, sour-visaged, condemnatory attitude. It 
knows that it is better to love than to preach ; better 
to lead people into the true way than to drive them ; 
better to sympathize than to find fault. 

Religion is not a theory ; not a form ; not a build- 
ing ; not a certain day of the week ; not a creed ; not 
a book; not a cloth; not a sect separate from other 
sects. All these are but vehicles or accompani- 
ments. They are the paraphernalia. They are not 
absolutely essential, though like a stage setting 
they may help to bring out the play. But they are 
not religion. Religion, as some one has said, is 



106 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

the life of God in the soul of man. No better defi- 
nition of any word was ever written. 

Awaken to that life which is in you. Let it be- 
come a bubbling spring of joy in your heart. It 
will fill your eyes with light, your face with kind- 
ness and your lips with laughter. It will make of 
you an optimist, because you will know, absolutely 
know, that the world is growing better. You will 
recognize God's hand in all history and you will be 
ready to shout aloud for joy because of the {re- 
alization. 

What has been thought of as sadness in the poet, 
in the devotee, in the lover of beauty, is but a full- 
ness of joy that stills and humbles. When you are 
pensive through hearing sweet music, or gazing on 
a sunset, or in the presence of a great love, it is be- 
cause of a gladness unspeakable. 

The soul that becomes conscious is joyous be- 
cause it is free. There is no bondage like delusion, 
no chains like ignorance. There is no slave like 
the man that is his own taskmaster. No one else 
can truly enslave you. You forge your own 
shackles and break them, when they are broken. 
You yourself go down into Egypt and in turn be- 
come your own Moses. You constantly weave some 
rope to tether your limbs. You put barriers in your 
own way, and then accuse Fate. You make your- 
self subject to accidents and environments. You 
create for yourself things that you call duties and 
then fancy that these duties are hateful and irksome. 
So you become a martyr to your own false concep- 
tions. You say you are ruled by stars and signs, 
by your body or your heredity. Thus you forever 
build your own prison. But when your soul 
awakens you suddenly discover that you are master 



THE GOSPEL OF JOY 107 

of your life. Environment, stars, heredity, body, 
all lose their power upon you. These things are 
your servants, not your rulers. How can a thing 
that passes away have dominion over a soul that is 
immortal ? When you come to your own and know 
yourself you are emancipated. 

What gives such joy as freedom? When you 
know that you are in liberty, that bondage is no 
more for you, that death and seeming can affright 
you never again, should you not be glad ? Are you 
not like David in that all the hills and trees join you 
in singing praises to the God of the things that are? 

The soul that is awake has perfect faith. Doubt 
has fled far from him. He knows that all that is is 
good. He trusts as a little child. He lays down 
his life with absolute confidence that he shall take 
it up again. He gives all without reserve, knowing 
that he shall receive all in return. Without a reser- 
vation he throws himself upon the universal. He 
does the Father's work and knows that the Father 
will provide for His own. He borrows no trouble 
for the morrow, for he knows that the morrow will 
be sufficient unto itself. His hope is unfaltering, 
because hope is the child of faith. He gives himself 
to the universal and depends on the universal for 
guidance and sustenance. 

Where is there more joy than in unutterable 
faith ? When you can feel that your prayer is never 
in vain, that your Father is mindful of you, that 
when you knock it will be opened unto you, when 
you are conscious of these things as absolute verities 
in your own life, should they not make you glad? 
In what way could any more joyous thing come 
to you? 

The soul that is awake is in love. It is in love 



108 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

with the Father and all His creations. It is in love 
with the dawn and the sunshine, with the star and 
the dewdrop; it is in love with the grassblade and 
the tree, with the brook and the ocean. It is in 
love with the meadow and the mountain, the blos- 
som and the rain by which it is washed. The soul 
that is awake is in love with all forms of life, from 
the protoplasm to the poet. All men are included 
in its kindly thought, all children share its joy, all 
women receive its homage. Hatred is banished for- 
ever from its presence. Enemies it has none, for 
envy and malice die in its good fellowship. Force 
it never uses, for it knows that love is the conqueror 
of force. It has found the way of life, for the way 
of life is love. 

Why should not such a soul be glad? Where 
is there place for sourness, or bitterness, accusation 
or exclusion in a spirit that knows these things? 
Joy? joy everlasting, unspeakable, joy exultant, tri- 
umphant, joy bubbling and overflowing, this is the 
portion of the soul that is awake in God. 



UNIVERSAL LOVE 

Sometimes we call it good will, sometimes kind- 
liness, sometimes philanthropy, sometimes at- 
traction, and sometimes love. Whatever our 
name it is the one constructive force of the uni- 
verse. It holds atom to atom, cell to cell, heart to 
heart and world to sun. It is everywhere manifest, 
everywhere operative. It is shown in the sunshine 
.that warms into life the myriad forms of each 
planet. It is shown by the rain that falls upon the 
thirsty lips of the leaves. It is shown by the cosmic 
force that holds the clustered stars in space and im- 
pels them forward in perfect harmony and order. 
It is shown by the mother that lends her substance 
to the little one and thus furnishes a gateway for a 
soul to enter into life. It is shown by the martyr 
who is willing to perish, that the race may be quick- 
ened and the truth made plain. 

We are coming more and more to see that the 
way of love is the way of life, and that he who de- 
nies good will to any being in that far limits his 
own happiness. It is our privilege to give out kind- 
liness as the sun gives out light. It is our privilege 
to carry with us an atmosphere of blessing and 
health. It is our privilege to make life a song, to 
radiate good cheer. As these things flow out from 
us so will they flow back to us. As we give, we 
shall receive. 

All through the ages men have had but a partial 
conception of life. They have looked at a segment 
of the circle, not the full rounded orb. They have 



110 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

limited themselves by their own attitudes. They 
have cut off their power of coming to the universal 
— God — by hating and excluding a part of that 
universal. They have failed to see that they could 
not arrive at the fullness of life until they were 
reconciled to every being who shared that life. They 
tried to be at peace with God while at war with 
their neighbors. They forgot first to be reconciled 
to their brothers before bringing their gifts to the 
altar. 

The light grows. Our conceptions broaden. A 
larger segment of the circle appears. We begin to 
see that to hate is simply to limit ourselves. God- 
does not exclude us, but we exclude God when we 
exclude His creatures. He is love, universal love, 
and we can only come to Him by entering into the 
spirit of the universal love which He is. To shut 
our hearts against any is to shut our hearts against 
Him. "As ye have done it even unto the least of 
these my brethren ye have done it unto me." 

Those who sin are as children. In any real sense 
the sin hurts only themselves, but they do not see, 
they do not understand. If we hate them for it we 
do them no good and hurt ourselves. It is not ours 
to censure and exclude, but rather to help them un- 
fold and grow into something better. A flower will 
not blossom in the darkness, but in the sunlight. So 
a soul will not open unto hatred, but rather unto 
love. When our child commits' a fault we love it 
into doing better. So we should make our attitude 
to the little, growing souls that stumble and fall 
along the way of life. 

This is the heart of the gospel taught by Jesus. 
Underneath every sentence of it is the spirit of love. 
The religion of the Jews had been one of strife and 



UNIVERSAL LOVE III 



struggle, of stern justice, of an eye for an eye and a 
tooth for a tooth. That religion stoned the male- 
factor and went forth with the sword to slay those 
whom it considered the enemies of the true God. 
It regarded the children of Israel as the chosen 
people and excluded all others. It was a fierce, a 
warlike faith, that sought to limit the Father to a 
faction. 

The Nazarene brought an utterly new gospel. It 
judged not. It resisted not. It excluded not. Like 
the sunshine, it flowed out alike to all, Gentile as 
well as Jew, sinner as well as saint. It laid aside 
the battle flag and raised instead the banner of peace. 
It was no longer the avenging angel, white and 
stern and terrible; but it was the angel with the 
shining eyes and the smiling face, that came not to 
condemn but to lift up. 

From that day a new word was on the lips and in 
the hearts of men. That word was love. Long it 
had struggled for expression, but the utterance was 
faint and broken. Now had come a. full and ade- 
quate voice that sang forth the song with sweetness 
and glory and power, and the music that fell from 
those divine lips has charmed the world into some 
semblance of harmony and good will. 

We are just coming to understand the spirit be- 
hind that song; we are beginning to see the wisdom 
of that doctrine of non-resistance; we are learning 
that the universal love which he incarnated is the 
way, the truth and the life. We catch a glimmer 
of a wisdom that is higher than our wisdom, a 
simple faith that goes deeper into the mysteries of 
things than the plummet of all the boasted knowl- 
edge of man, and a fountain within the soul whose 



112 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

shining and singing waters bubble forth with a joy- 
that is always sweet and new. 

In the storm of life, with its clouds of doubt and 
its rain of tears, the spiritual sunlight breaks 
through and forms a perfect rainbow, with one foot 
in the world we call the living and one foot in the 
world we term the dead. It is the rainbow of Love, 
and its promise is that at last there will be no more 
storm. 

At the gulf of death all things else falter and fail. 
Words do not reach across, and the language we 
would fain fancy is from the other side falls into 
a meaningless jargon that is a mockery. Hope, 
bright-eyed and joyous, pauses upon that brink, and, 
as she looks at the blackness beyond, her smile dies 
and the light goes out of her eyes. Even Faith, 
usually so confident and fearless, falters in crossing 
that abysm. But Love, at the touch of the dread 
angel, only grows the stronger and binds us to the 
one who has gone before with a firmer bond. 

Hope may be palsied by fear and Faith may fall 
in doubt, but Love loves on. Unquestioning and 
unafraid, it pierces through all seeming and goes 
direct to its object. It triumphs over death here 
and hereafter. It takes hold of God and lifts the 
soul unto Him. 

If a man were required to write of religion every 
day of his life he could write on it each time as some 
different phase of love. In this infinite subject he 
would discover that every new point of view would 
reveal a new beauty, until at last when life were 
done he would find that he had only touched upon 
the edges of his theme, and as his eyes closed to the 
old life and opened on the new he would see the 
all in all of that new life to be the same thing he 



UNIVERSAL LOVE 113 

had been imperfectly expressing in the old, now for 
the first time realized in its fullness and glory and 
power — God's boundless and endless expression — 
Love. 

'The night has a thousand eyes, 

The day but one; 
Yet the light of a whole world dies 

At set of sun. 

"The mind has a thousand eyes, 

The heart but one ; 
Yet the life of a whole life dies 

When Love is done." 

Love, which should be the supreme law of this 
life, really is the supreme law of Heaven. That is 
the reason it is Heaven. 

He who has most of Love is greatest, for he is ex- 
pressing most of God. 

Love is proof positive of immortality, for he who 
loves purely and truly sometime, somewhere, must 
gain the thing he loves. This is the. law. We love 
only our own, and our own shall come to us. 

He who has love for all creatures has known 
God, for God is Love. He whose inward life is a 
bubbling fountain of love and good will has the 
kingdom of Heaven within him. 

All through the ages the alchemists hunted for 
some magic substance that would transmute the 
baser metals into gold ; but they did not realize that 
it was a spiritual, not a physical, thing for which 
they sought. Love transmutes all things into gold. 
He who has love in his life sees the beautiful and 
good everywhere. For him the universe is trans- 



114 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

formed and there is nothing mean or ignoble in it. 
Love is proverbially blind — to the bad. It has the 
discernment to see but the best in all creatures. 

Love is the exact opposite of selfishness. The 
rising into the universal consciousness — which is 
the Christ consciousness — is but the rising into 
Love. As we reach out more and more to others, 
the self, with its sense of separateness, dies in us. 
We begin to see that we are one with all beings. 
We come to look on the neighbor as our other self. 
We grow into awareness of the all-consciousness 
that is expressed in each of the children of the 
Father. We are but a part of it. We are only 
modes, as it were, of its infinite variety of manifesta- 
tion. Thus we see not only our relation to our 
brothers, but our identity with them. All this is the 
coming into the kingdom of Love. All this is the 
coming into touch with the Universal, which makes 
us immortal in its immortality. All this is the 
losing of self and the gaining of God. 

"Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the 

chords with might, 
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in 

music out of sight." 

Love harmonizes all seeming differences. It 
makes us charitable one with another. It causes us 
to cease to judge our fellows. It takes the Pharisa- 
ism, the holier-than-thou, out of us. It makes us 
kindly to all God's creatures. It makes us gentle 
in our homes and courteous to the world. It makes 
our lives radiate sunshine. 

Love transfigures us, morally, mentally and 
physically. Morally, it takes from us the desire to 



UNIVERSAL LOVE 1 15 

overreach and injure others. Mentally, it turns all 
of our gifts into helpful and useful channels. Physi- 
cally, it softens and beautifies our faces, lends a 
light to the eyes and a smile to the lips. It gives 
us a magnetism that draws all unto us. And as like 
attracts like, it brings a perfect rain of love back 
to us. 

The mere intellectual apprehension of things is 
not enough. It is the living them that counts. 

Love takes the bitterness from disappointment 
and the sting from sorrow. It plants outward 
flowers on the graves of its dead and imvard flowers 
to shed fragrance over their memories. It admits 
no separation, but holds its objects closer because 
they seem to be away. 

Love ever expresses itself in deed. It finds the 
man in the gutter and sets him on the highway. 
It appeals to the womanhood in her who has gone 
astray and leads her back to purity. It sees the hard 
conditions of those who toil and helps to wrest 
the scepter from the hands of Greed. It has many 
manifestations. In one case it expresses itself as 
kindliness, in another as charity, in another as pity, 
in another as mercy ; but always and evervwhere it 
is Love. 

It blesses us all through the journey of life, closes 
down our eyelids when we fall asleep and accom- 
panies us in our journey to the realm beyond the 
shadow. 

Love binds the souls of those on both sides of 
the grave. It is the rainbow whose shining arch 
spans two worlds. 



THE NEED OF THE AGE 

This is a comfortable age. The good things of 
life never were so generally diffused. This 
world-knowledge never was so far advanced. 
Future prospects never were so enchanting. There 
is little wonder that we become so enamored of these 
things that we lose sight of the fact that they are 
evanescent and that the eternals lies in a different 
realm. 

It is easy to turn to God in periods of trouble, 
but the real test comes in times of prosperity. 

The danger of present material development is 
that it will give us an exaggerated view of the im- 
portance of things that pass away, and that it will 
shut out the real and spiritual world which is per- 
manent. 

The need of the age is to keep things in their 
right relations, and while continuing development 
in the world of matter, yet not losing hold of the 
greater world which lies behind and beyond matter. 

In a word, the need of the age is Christianity as 
Christ taught it. Not the half-lights and glimpses of 
it in the creeds and human interpretations, but the 
full view as revealed through the four gospels them- 
selves. 

There is no study that more broadens, enriches 
and sweetens a man's character than that of Christ's 
own utterances. If you doubt the statement, at 
least give it a trial. It will not take you long. There 
are only four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and 
John. You can read them in the time given an 



THE NEED OF THE AGE WJ 

ordinary novel. Try it. Perhaps when you have 
read them once you may want to read them again. 
There is a quality in them that grows on you. 

You may find some things that you will pro- 
nounce impracticable. Yet do not be too dogmatic. 
You may be mistaken. This is a big universe, and 
there are many things in it we do not know. Be- 
sides, there is a great truth dawning on the world 
to-day. It is that all Christ's teachings are practi- 
cal — only that men have not reached His standard 
as yet. 

The need of the age is a spiritual awakening. 
Progress ? Yes, there is progress, but we have only 
been in the basement of it. 

We have been watching the lights play on the 
features of a mask without perceiving the beautiful 
and living soul behind. We have been gazing at 
the reflection of the sun in a mud puddle instead of 
casting our eyes upward at the glory of the heavens. 

The need of the age is the spirit that makes alive 
instead of the letter that kills. We have had enough 
of formalism, cant and hypocrisy. We need to 
throw aside the barriers and rubbish and go to the 
real Christ. We need some of the sweet, humani- 
tarian religion of the Carpenter who came to "preach 
the gospel to the poor." We have been making 
Him shadowy and afar off. We want hold of His 
hands, to look into His eyes, to feel His love for 
us and to drink in the glory of His promise. 

We need Him in our lives ; not on Sunday, but 
every day of the week. If we cannot take Him into 
our business, then there is something wrong with 
our business. If we cannot take Him into our 
pleasures, then our pleasures are not real joys, but 
are of the sort that turn to ashes. 



Il8 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

To-day is a part of Eternity. We do not have 
to die to gain heaven — or hell. Death is not such 
a transformation. It only strips from us our ma- 
terialism. It only shows us a little more plainly the 
hideousness of our own sins. But we are living 
in the Now. This hour is the time for our souls 
to awaken. Here is where we need to take hold of 
the verities. To-day is the time for us to get into 
the kingdom — for the everlasting is but one eternal 
To-day. 

Most of the suffering in the world comes from 
the fact that we have not reached the Christ-ideal. 

Men have been searching all through the world 
for some theory of life, for some social panacea. 
They did not seem to realize that both were just 
before them in easy reach. The new-old truths 
taught by the Nazarene are applicable now. Inter- 
preted in the language and larger views of these 
later years, they fit the needs of this age. The 
shibboleth of the Future is to be genuine Christi- 
anity. Not a part of it, but the full message. Not 
the dogmas of the feudal ages concerning it, but 
the very words of Christ. Not even Paul and the 
Apostles, but the Master. He preached the religion 
of Humanity. He proclaimed all that is true in the 
New Thought, most of which is very old. He fore- 
shadowed a plan of perfect social justice — a king- 
dom of Brotherhood. He taught healing — not only 
for the individual body, but for 'the body politic. 
Go to Him — not to His professed representatives, 
but to Him. Learn of Him, through His utterances 
and through your own soul. Drink in His spirit. 
It will not only make you free ; but it is destined to 
free all mankind. 

Here in this wonderful new time let us turn our 



THE NEED OF THE AGE ll9 

eyes to the rising sun of a higher spirituality than 
the race has ever before known. 

The world is tired of .the worship of man-made 
creeds and interpretations, of material symbols, of 
shadows and forms. It yearns for the living water 
from the eternal springs of Life. It yearns for the 
bread that is substance and that will satisfy. The 
souls of men are hungry. They may not admit it 
outwardly, even to themselves, but the hunger that 
is in them drives them this way and that and never 
lets them rest. They are famishing for immortal 
tidings. They do not seek formalism or profes- 
sional cant, but they want words filled with the 
spirit of truth and telling them of their eternal 
heritage. 

We have had too much culture of the outward 
that shut the door on that which is within". We have 
fallen into the old, old error of thinking that the 
flesh and the physical mind constitute the man, when 
they are only servants of the man and should be 
trained as such. * The lord of the household is 
within. Would you crowd him out of his heritage? 

Each man is dual — a god that is immortal and a 
beast that dies. Would you deny the god that the 
beast might rule? Would you starve, neglect, ig- 
nore and mistreat the prince with the divine right 
that you might build up, fatten and cultivate the 
animal that is only meant to obey ? 

Let your body rule you and it will carry you into 
all manner of excesses, hatreds, selfish sins, errors 
and finally disease and death. Let the spirit rule 
you and it will fill your life with harmony, with 
love, with noble resolves, with supernal happiness 
and with eternal progress and life. 

When you elevate a slave into a master he is the 



120 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

hardest and most cruel driver on earth. So it is 
with the physical self. Give it absolute control and 
it is a devil. Make it know that it must obey and 
it becomes an ideal servant. 

Discord, fear, error, envy, hatred, selfishness, 
greed, materialism, disease and the dread of physical 
death are all of your own creation. They need not 
be. They are not normal. Bring yourself into one- 
ness with the Oversoul and as you rise more and 
more perfectly into its realm you will come into 
harmony, serenity, truth and love, while all the 
evils which are but forms of error will lose their 
potency and will finally vanish from you. 

Know that you have nothing to fear in all the 
universe — except yourself. Know that God is all- 
in-all and that He is good. If you bring yourself 
into harmony with Him naught without can harm 
you. Though men should lie about you, should 
take away your property, should even kill your 
physical body, all this is external and does not af- 
fect you. You still have hold of God and all the 
universe is yours. You have all the reality, you 
have only lost the evanescent and the seeming. No 
one can take anything from you in truth. No one 
can harm you. You can harm yourself by hating 
others for what they do; but it is your act, not 
theirs, that affects you. All the sweetness, the love, 
the glory, the heaven of being are yours, if you will 
but take them. No one else can prevent you. Where 
is the room for fear? What are you afraid of? 
The universal love is around you. Open your life 
to that, live in concord with it, and you are secure 
through all eternity. 

And there is nothing else in the universe worth 
while. All besides is but the chasing of phantoms 



THE NEED OF THE AGE 121 



that finally disappear. You can attain that heaven 
now. It is a state of your soul. You do not have 
to wait for some far-off hereafter. This is Eternity 
— this ever-continuing Now. You can live with one 
perpetual consciousness of God in you; and this is 
Paradise. 

Free your mind from the thought that you needs 
must await some future time or go to some distant 
place to find immortality. To the spiritual percep- 
tion distance — either in time or space — is not. It 
is all a matter of state, your plane of consciousness, 
your degree of attainment. Realize that the place 
where you are is a part of Infinity, related to every 
other place. Realize that this moment of time is a 
part of the eternal, related to all that was or is or is 
to be. Realize that your soul is a part of God, re- 
lated to every other soul in the universe. Realize 
that the physical is but a manifestation — while you 
are consciousness. Realize, in a word, that you can 
rise into the Universal, and that the universal light 
and love and gladness will flow through you with 
ijiore and more abundance, as you open yourself 
unto it. 

This is the truth that was taught by the Christ, 
the Divine Teacher. It shines under His every 
utterance in the gospel of John. This is the truth 
that has been taught in some form by all the lesser 
lights through the ages — by Buddha, by Plato, by 
S wedenborg, and, in a different way, by our own 
Emerson. This is the truth that, when we come 
into it, will make us free. 

The eternal Spirit is all that is worthy of worship. 
When we realize this, how plain and simple it all 
becomes ! The isms vanish like mist. The worship 
of forms, of rituals, of creeds, of institutions, of 






GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 



symbols, of men, of days, of anything except the 
Oversoul that is all-in-all, seems but so much fetich- 
worship and takes its place beside the old pagan 
idolatry of material symbols. 

We lift our eyes, not to the dead, but to the 
Living Christ, who is one with the Father and w r ho 
is with us always, even unto the end of the world. 

For God is a Spirit, and we must worship Him in 
spirit and in truth. 



RELIGION IN CHARACTER 

It has become a fad with certain cults of the day 
to minimize the effects of evil. It is very popu- 
lar with them to roll as a sweet morsel under 
their tongues the assertion that evil is only relative 
anyway; forgetting that all things human are but 
relative and that evil is as ultimate in its nature as 
any other human concept. It is only a step with 
some of these theorists from the idealistic state- 
ment that evil has no real existence to the compla- 
cent belief that some particular evil is not a reality, 
and that, therefore, its perpetration does not much 
matter. In fact, the human mind is prone to warp 
some sublimated speculation into a shield for vice. 
In this way what would otherwise be a harmless 
theory becomes demoralizing. 

The fact of the matter is that man's freedom per- 
mits him to act in accordance with law or to the 
contrary; and, if the latter, no amount of philoso- 
phizing will save him from the consequences of 
error. The reflection that heat is only rapid vibra- 
tion will do a man little good if he sticks his hand 
into the fire. Neither will the oft-asserted opinion 
that matter is not a reality avert the consequences 
if he sends a ball of that matter crashing through 
his brain. 

The trouble with many people is that they catch 
a glimpse of truth and project it to absurd and il- 
logical lengths, failing to take into account its 
relations to other truths and their own limitations. 
They find a flaw in some old idea of things and im- 



124 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

mediately jump to the conclusion that all old ideas 
are therefore wrong. In other words, they lack 
balance and perspective. They cannot see a little 
light and keep their heads. 

God gave man the gift of common sense, a sort 
of universal intuition of truth, to save him from 
going daft with his own theorizing and speculation. 
And whenever he gets off on some tangent where 
his outward mind has let him wander, this intuitive 
common sense hauls him up short and sets him 
right. Related to this natural perception of things 
is another God-given monitor known as conscience. 
If there is anything that these two faculties teach, 
it is that evil, as it relates to man, is a reality, and a 
terrible reality at that; and, if persistently followed, 
it brings misery, demoralization, degeneracy and 
even destruction itself. 

It is somewhat a matter of harmony. Evil is dis- 
cord. It is also a matter of truth. Evil is error. 
It is also a matter of naturalness. Evil is abnormal. 
It is also a matter of health. Evil is disease. It is 
also a matter of the right relations of things. Evil 
is chaotic. It is also a matter of duty to yourself 
and others. Evil is immoral. 

In a real sense, evil grows out of the wrong con- 
cept of self — the thought that the individual is a 
thing apart from other individuals and from the 
universal. This causes us to assert self at the ex- 
pense of others. It is only by rising out of this 
material and external concept of the ego and by 
perceiving that we are at one with all that we come 
into the harmony of truth and good. 

The law of love arises from our oneness with 
all other entities in the universal; and all forms of 
hate and selfishness proceed from a false conception 



RELIGION IN CHARACTER 125 

of individuality. We first arise from our false 
sense of isolation into the thought of brotherhood, 
and from that into the cosmical consciousness, 
where we attain to harmony with all law and hence 
are saved from evil. But this is a long process and 
can only be perfected by taking hold of the Christ- 
life — only by coming into the love of good, the har- 
mony with the Universal, the Father. 

The only progress we make is by triumphing over 
evil. The physical self will always lead us into 
temptation unless corrected by the soul. This is for 
the reason that the physical self is seemingly sepa- 
rate and alone, looking only for its own gratification 
and aggrandizement, while the soul is in touch with 
the universal and seeks its own good in the good 
of all. 

"To him that overcometh" is promised all things. 
He must conquer himself. He must triumph over 
the error and evil in his own external nature; and 
if he triumphs over these he will then be ready to 
triumph over evil and error in society. 

The first baptism of water is symbolical of cleans- 
ing your life. The form is nothing in itself. The 
thing it stands for is everything. Repent. Get rid 
of your sin. Make your life pure and wholesome. 
This is necessary before the baptism of the spirit 
can come. This is but another statement of the 
proverb that "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." By 
this is not meant alone physical cleanliness, but, in 
a far higher degree, moral cleanliness. This is the 
necessary step before Godliness can be reached. 
Wash out your life. Become clean, not only in your 
acts and words, but in your thoughts. "Blessed are 
the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This is 
simply another statement of the same truth. Flush 



126 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

out your moral impurities. The city is most health- 
ful that has the best sewerage. The same is true 
of a life. Wash out your iniquities and errors by 
the waters of truth. You can reach no real height 
of spiritual attainment until you do this. Every 
great religion has stated this fundamental truth. 
No modern sophistry will overthrow it. Free and 
easy morals do not belong in this realm. They never 
did and never will. 

Words are cheap. Acts are more to the point, 
but even they may be only for appearance and so 
be hypocritical. But Character is genuine. Higher 
than what you say or what you do is what you are. 
"An evil tree will not bring forth good fruit.' ' A 
man who is good in himself will speak good words 
and do good deeds. He cannot help it. They 
bubble out of him as spontaneously as a clear spring 
from the mountain side. 

The final statement of religion, then, is in Char- 
acter. It is for that we build ; and we cannot build 
it in the sands of immorality, but on the rock of 
virtue and truth. 

This is a universe of law. On the physical plane 
is law. He who transgresses that law destroys 
his own body. On the civic or social plane is 
law. He who transgresses that law destroys his 
harmonious relations with his fellows, his liberty. 
On the moral and spiritual plane is law. He who 
transgresses that law destroys his own soul. 

The great lesson we have to learn is that of obedi- 
ence; not obedience to somebody outside ourselves, 
especially if his command goes counter to our own 
views of right, but rather obedience to the voice 
within us ; obedience to the laws of our own being. 



RELIGION IN CHARACTER 127 

The physical self must obey the spirit. The lower 
must be submissive to the higher. 

The soul can only grow by being in harmony with 
the laws of its unfoldment. That is the reason 
every religion has been based upon morality. Before 
we can harmoniously develop we must have right 
relations to all things, right relations to our physi- 
cal environment, right relations to our fellowmen, 
right relations to life, right relations to God. 

When we injure our own bodies, by overindul- 
gence in any direction, we are in wrong relations 
to our bodies. When we injure our fellowman, by 
unduly restraining him, by keeping from him what 
is rightfully his, by failing to give him our love 
and help, we are in wrong relations to our fellow- 
man. When we fail to recognize the spirit, by 
obeying its mandates within us, we are in wrong 
relations to the spirit. 

All these things retard our growth. They keep 
us out of our kingdom. They prevent us from 
realizing our own inner divinity. They hold us back 
from coming into that which is for us. 

The law of our being is that we must hold right 
relations to all things. Whenever we transgress 
that law we make our own way hard. We, our- 
selves, are our only real enemies. We, ourselves, 
are the only ones that can finally inflict injury upon 
ourselves. We make our own fate. We build our 
own heaven or our own hell. We decide whether 
we shall go upward to the light or downward to the 
darkness. We choose our own success or failure. 
All things within itself are possible to the awakened 
soul. It can rise to the heights of the divine or 
descend to the depths of the demon. It knows the 
law, intuitively, unerringly knows the law, and it 



128 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

can live in conformity to that law, or the reverse. 
Over itself it is supreme. It can turn toward dark- 
ness and discord or it can lift up its face to God 
and forever grow fuller of His light and harmony. 

The law may be broken through ignorance. But 
no man need be under the ban of ignorance. He has 
within himself a true monitor, if he only heeds it. 
When he lies, or steals, or cheats, or kills, he knows 
that he is transgressing. True, if he denies the 
voice, he grows blunted and dead to it. But, if he 
heeds it, his hearing becomes more and more acute, 
until his life is absolutely guided by the divinity 
within him. 

It is not worth while to split hairs over the origin 
of conscience, or the possibility of modifying it by 
education. Neither is it worth while to speculate 
intellectually upon the freedom of the will. Say 
what we may, everyone intuitively knows within 
himself the truth of these matters. There is some- 
thing higher than the mere sense concept, something 
more unerring even than reason that tells him, if he 
only listens to it. The only way to come into the 
fuller knowledge of this intuitive something, of this 
other self, is to follow its leadings. The only way 
to know the truth is to live the life of truth. 

The good, not the goody-good, but the really 
good, are the only ones whose souls can develop. 
They are the ones who live in accordance with the 
laws of their own being. They are in right rela- 
tions to all things. They live in harmony with the 
real, the eternal. They have inward peace, because 
their souls are satisfied. They are following the 
way of life. 

But those who are out of harmony are in hell 
already. They have eternal war within themselves, 



RELIGION IN CHARACTER 1 29 

because the inner something, the intuition, the soul, 
knows that it is being retarded from coming into its 
heritage. True, they may gain a false peace at last 
by drowning this voice. But, in doing so, they are 
murdering the only real self within them. The 
body cannot help them, for that dies. It is only a 
means given to help in soul development. If it 
fails in that, the object of living is missed. 

It is idle to dodge these things. We all know the 
truth of them. Deny as we may, there is an innate 
knowledge within us stronger than our denials. 
Speculate as we will, there is a prompting in us that 
will not be speculated away. After the noise and 
clamor are done, it makes itself felt. In the quiet 
hour it stirs within us. Some time, some place, it 
brings us face to face with our true self. In some 
intense hour of self-revelation it shows us what a 
muss we have made of it all. We cannot escape 
it. For to escape it would be to escape the im- 
mortal part of us, and that would be annihilation. 

Call this inner something what you will, the truth 
remains. Try to compass it with the sense concept. 
That does not help you. The prompting is still 
there for you to follow. The only thing is to be 
obedient. Heed the voice. Live the life. Then all 
your faculties will develop harmoniously. Then 
faith and reason will go hand in hand and lead you 
to higher heights than you had ever dreamed. Then 
you will gain the larger vision. Then you will 
know the truth, in and of itself. The intellectual 
and the intuitional will evolve in harmony. Your 
bodily life will be interfused with your spiritual 
life. You will come into a sense of atonement with 
your own soul and with God. You will know im- 
mortality, will be conscious of it in every blessed 



130 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

moment. Your life will become a life of love to all 
beings. You will enjoy every phase of it more 
fully, because you will see its relations with every 
other phase of life. You will cease more and more 
to transgress the law, because you will know that it 
is not worth while. You will see higher things so 
much more to be desired that the lower desires will 
drop away. 

This is not ^n idle dream. It is the only reality. 
It has come into the life of the great and good in 
every age. They have testified to its truth. Surely 
their word is entitled to some, weight. Surely, also, 
the voice in your own being is entitled to some 
weight. If you will listen, it will bear witness and 
you will know that witness is true. Others cannot 
bring you immortal tidings, but they can awaken 
you so that you may hear the immortal tidings in 
your own spirit. 

The object of life is soul culture. If you miss 
that you miss all. 

The only way to gain true soul culture is to live 
in harmony with the soul of life. You must be 
obedient to the law, the physical law, the civic law, 
the moral law, the spiritual law. If you transgress 
you yourself suffer the penalty. 

But when you live in accordance with all these 
laws of your being you attain liberty. The way is 
easy and the end glorious. 



SCIENCE PROVES IMMORTALITY 

The dream of eternal life is older than history; 
it is wider than creeds or religions ; it is as old 
and as wide as humanity itself. 

The proofs of immortality are threefold : First, 
revelation in the forms of gospels; second, interior 
intimations; third, external evidences in nature. 

To the man who accepts the Bible, or the Koran, 
or the Talmud, or any other of the scriptures of the 
world, no further proof is necessary. The word 
is to him inspired; the page is illuminated by the 
promise of God Himself. That is enough. 

To the soul that looks deeply into the nature of 
life the very fact that such a being as Christ lived 
and taught the things He taught is not only an 
overwhelming evidence of divinity, but also of that 
divinity being planted in the human race. 

There are those, however, who do not accept reve- 
lation. To them some further proof is necessary. 

There are souls here on this earth to-day so 
filled with spirituality, with a divine prescience, with 
glimpses of heaven, that they have no more doubt 
of the future life than of the present. Were there 
not a gospel on earth these souls could yet look up 
and have faith, for "God's glory would smite them 
on the face." 

Yet evidence of the interior sort, though abso- 
lutely conclusive to him that feels it, means nothing 
to another. We must look for something tangible 
to satisfy all minds. 

The fact that men in every age have believed in 



132 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

some sort of existence after death is a circumstan- 
tial proof that should carry much weight. It is 
hardly thinkable that in a universe of truth there 
would be implanted in the minds of nearly all men 
a lie. But, the objectors say, this may proceed 
from man's desire for life. Even granting that it 
has no deeper foundation, is it probable that a race 
of beings would be filled by a desire that by no pos- 
sibility could be gratified? How unspeakably cruel 
that would be ! 

Waive all this, however. Here are yet another 
set of circumstances. Great bodies of men in the 
world believe in spirit return and communication. 
Through all the ages have been tales of ghosts and 
angels, of messages from the other side. Recently 
leading members of a very respectable body of sci- 
entific men, the Society for Psychical Research, a 
world-wide organization, have expressed themselves 
as satisfied that they have received communications 
from the so-called dead. 

This whole subject of spiritism is so tinctured 
with fraud, however, that we will waive it also. 
The skeptical mind demands absolute proof. Very 
well. Can we not find it? 

Science teaches the conservation of energy, the 
conservation of matter, the conservation of all. 
There is no loss, there can be no loss, in the universe. 

Experience is a thing, a very . valuable thing ; 
there is nothing more valuable. Human life is but a 
gaining of experience. Is this experience lost at 
the change we call death? It is unthinkable. Then 
what becomes of it ? 

If you say that it is transmitted by heredity or 
by history, you forget science teaches that the world 
dies at last, and the human race with it. Then is 



SCIENCE PROVES IMMORTALITY 1 33 

all the experience gained by all the lives on earth 
to be lost? If the creed of the atheist be true, yes. 
What an illogical proposition! 

If all the gospels were blotted out, if there were 
no intimations of eternal life in the soul, the fact 
that there is no loss in nature would settle the ques- 
tion of individual immortality. 

Life is a force — the highest force so far as we 
know. If death ends all, what becomes of this 
force? If you say it passes to other entities, then 
what becomes of the personality, the thing that 
knows that I am I? That is a thing also. Can 
that be lost? But there is no loss, says science. 
There may be change, but there can be no such 
thing as annihilation in nature, any more than there 
can be a vacuum. 

There is no loss of life ; there is no loss of experi- 
ence; but to preserve life and experience each indi- 
vidual entity must continue after death. There is 
no other way. 

Thoughts are things. They are the only things, 
in fact, that the human mind knows. In no way 
does it touch the material universe. It only comes 
in contact with its concepts. 

Suppose there were a being with an entirely dif- 
ferent set of senses from our own. Suppose the 
vast range of vibrations between sound and light, 
which have no effect upon us, affected its organs, 
while the sound waves and light waves did not. 
Then suppose again it had a sense acted upon by the 
vibrations still higher than light, which are now 
supposed to be connected with the X-ray. Would 
the being with such senses not see an entirely dif- 
ferent world from the world we see? It would 
have knowledge of its concepts only, as we have. 



134 • GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

Beyond them it would have no point of contact with 
matter. 

The mind, for example, does not know a piece 
of iron. It only knows its concept of that piece of 
iron. The iron itself, in the ultimate sense, or to a 
being with a different set of senses, might be an 
entirely different thing. The only thing the thinker 
cognizes is the thought. 

What is the object of experience, if it is all to 
be lost at the end of the world? What is the use 
of progress and development if they are finally 
annihilated? 

Our senses do not show us things ultimately, but 
only relatively to ourselves. To this extent we cre- 
ate our own worlds. We see the seeming. To us 
the sun seems to move, when in reality it is we that 
move. The stars seem to be stuck in a blue vault 
only a little way off, all equi-distant, when in re- 
ality they are millions of miles away, at varying 
distances. 

All things are dual. The universe is a duality. 
Matter is only one side of the shield. In other 
words, it is the symbol. The thing symbolized is 
in the thought-world. 

It is a necessity of thought to return to an over- 
ruling intelligence — to the Unknown God. 

We may disagree about creeds. But we cannot 
disagree as to life. That is a fact. And we cannot 
disagree as to the Unknown. That is a fact. Into 
that Unknown the hand of man reaches. It is dark 
and terrible and he grows sick at heart. But sud- 
denly he feels a grasp upon his own. His heart 
'grows strong and a joy thrills to the very roots of 
his life. Henceforth there can be no doubt for that 
man. The mystery is not solved, but he learns that 



SCIENCE PROVES IMMORTALITY 1 35 

in that mystery is a merciful intelligence which 
shapes all things for the best. 

Search your own heart and if you find no God 
there, these words mean nothing to you. But if he 
is there, then belief is as natural as singing to a 
bird. 



THE MODERN PALESTINE 

With variations and in ever larger spirals, his- 
tory is re-enacted. Thus humanity climbs 
the stairway of Progress. Each step is like 
the steps that have gone before, only higher. 
Neither the spiral nor the stair is a perfect analogy, 
yet both in some wise symbolize the meaning. The 
race repeats its former experiences, only in a larger 
way and in a higher plane of consciousness. So we 
ever ascend Godward. 

The Chosen People! Who has not thrilled at 
their story ? From Abraham to Jesus it is the most 
sublime drama ever played upon the stage of his- 
tory. What giant actors ! What superb victories ! 
What fearful chastenings ! What a wealth of 
poetry, of philosophy, of spirituality, in their litera- 
ture! How T thin sometimes the veil over the Soul 
of Things ! 

Their glory has departed. The land of the 
prophet and the warrior is desolate. The remnants 
of the Tribes are scattered. The plains where once 
the shepherd fed his flocks are arid. A stranger 
rules the Holy City. The storms yet gather over 
Horeb and the wind yet sighs mysteriously like the 
voice of the Spirit through the cedars of Lebanon, 
but all between is deserted both by the soul and the 
body of Israel. The hills and valleys where David 
fought and sang and where the Messiah healed and 
taught are now in the domain of the Moslem. Only 
the Faith — the Spirit of the land — yet lives and it 
- has gone forth to conquer the earth. 



THE MODERN PALESTINE 137 

Yet far to the westward of Carmel and of Jerusa- 
lem has been found another Palestine. In a land 
divinely shielded from the gaze of men, until the 
hour had come, another chosen people are working 
out the problem of how to bring God's kingdom on 
earth. Here in our own dear country is the later 
and greater Israel. Discovered in the wonderful 
period of the Renaissance and the Reformation, at 
the very time when the revival of Christianity was 
coming through all Europe, from that hour till 
now the finger of God has been apparent in all our 
affairs. The very spirit that actuated the Israelites 
to seek a land where they could worship God in 
their own way, that spirit stirred in the Puritans 
who braved the wilderness of New England. 
Washington was a veritable Abraham and Lincoln 
a veritable Moses. Garrison was a David who slew 
his giant and Grant a Joshua who fought the battles 
of God's people. 

Who can doubt that there are to be other glories 
commensurate with this divine mission, that we are 
to witness the coming of the Son of Man in the 
souls of humanity, and that this is to be the heart 
and capital of the Universal Republic in the Golden 
Age of Peace? 

One great sentence is written across the centuries. 
It is spelled in the death of unrighteous civiliza- 
tions. The sands over Babylon form one letter; 
the ruins of Rome another. The Reformation, the 
founding of democracy, the end of slavery, all these 
spell out the words. The presence of the galaxy 
of men that formed this republic bears witness to 
the truth of the statement. Great souls like Socra- 
tes, Buddha and Shakespeare confirm it; while the 
presence of the Nazarene and those that surrounded 



138 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

Him clinch it forever. Every awakened soul knows 
it within itself; while every man that can read the 
signs of the ages sees it in letters of gold across the 
whole face of history : 

There is a God. 

Now and then some man seems to forget this 
great central truth. He acts as though he believed 
force and gold could do all things. He flies in the 
face of conscience, he trusts in his own strength, 
he places his selfish ends above all else. Sometimes 
he may seem to thrive; but in the end he meets a 
force that he does not understand; he stands face 
to face with a something he cannot buy, or bully, or 
cajole. He becomes a victim of the imponderable 
and invisible spirit of righteousness that he has de- 
nied ; truth is avenged upon him ; and his name be- 
comes a term of reproach among men. 

No life is made glorious except by the good it 
contains, the work for others, the truth it manifests, 
the greatness of soul it reveals. We love Lincoln 
because he loved mankind. We love Washington 
because he was not self-seeking, because he was too 
true to his country to be its king, because in the 
darkest hours he sought God's way in prayer. We 
love all those through the ages who were conscious 
instruments in the hands of the Divine and sought 
to better their race. 

It is the man who seeks to rise above others, not 
that he may help them, but that he may gratify his 
own vanity, whom the world comes to execrate. 
The man who would trample on his fellows to attain 
power, who would debauch a state to gain position, 
who would follow his own selfish desire in the face 
of God and man, he is the one who at last meets 



THE MODERN PALESTINE 139 

the divinity in human nature and goes down before 
it. He does not come as a shepherd to the sheep, 
but as a wolf to prey upon them. He seeks not to 
uplift the people, but only to exalt himself. He is 
of the rule and ruin order, but at the last he is the 
only one ruined. 

In the long run, we reap as we sow. Some time, 
somewhere, the deed we do comes back to us. If 
we fall, it is because we have digged the pit beneath 
our own feet. Our plotting against others reacts 
upon our own heads. There is no shrewdness, no 
scheming,, no power of gold, that will save us from 
our own misdeeds. The law is ever operative. It 
is as inevitable as death. It is as exact as the move- 
ment of the planets. 

Sneer at honor, if you will ; belittle virtue ; libel 
your race by saying that money rules the world; 
doubt everybody; be cynical and selfish and hard; 
deny all that is good and pure and innocent; shut 
out God; boast of your own superiority; be proud 
in your fancied strength; repudiate all disinterested 
sentiments; do all this, and you will find that you 
have simply shut out from yourself all that is best 
and sweetest in life. Hell means a place that is 
walled off, that is separate. You will find simply 
that you have walled yourself off in a little hell of 
your own. It is hard to conceive a punishment 
greater than to have no faith in your kind. 

People raised in coal mines have been known to 
deny the existence of the sun. People who have 
lived in the caves of their own doubt and materialism 
have been known to deny the spiritual sunlight 
of God. 

There is more in the world than the things that 
appear, more than the senses report, more than the 



140 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

objective manifestation that in the long aeons of 
God passes like the shadow of a cloud. There is 
more than can be weighed and measured, bought 
and sold. 

Honor yet lives, conscience yet is the divine voice, 
faith, love and truth are yet precious, character is 
yet a pearl of great price, there are yet living seven 
thousand and seventy times seven thousand who 
have not bent the knee to Baal. 

God is all in all. Justice and judgment shall 
abide forever. 

Forms change, but the spirit behind them works 
on. God's purpose is the same to-day it was in 
the days of the prophets. Age by age He unfolds 
His plan. Who that has eyes to see can fail to 
behold in the marvelous rise of our own land, in 
our continued victories, in our struggles for liberty, 
in the prosperity that has blest us and in our domi- 
nant position in the world, the mercies and loving 
kindness of the Father? 

Things do not happen by accident. In the divine 
economy there is no such thing as chance. We 
doubt so much, we so deny our own souls, we are 
so cynical and selfish that we fail to see what a 
little child should understand. There is no miracle 
in any age of the past that is more fraught with the 
divine than the continuous miracle of American his- 
tory. If we could but awaken in spirit, if we could 
but look at things as they are beneath the mere ap- 
pearance, we would be filled with wonder and de- 
light to see how all things are working together for 
good in the ushering in of the better era. 

Why not cease doubting? Negation is hell. We 
deny ourselves, deny what is for us, erect a barrier 
that shuts out all the best of life. Why not have 



THE MODERN PALESTINE I4I 

faith? Why not admit the sunlight and the happi- 
ness that is ours for the asking? God is in His world 
and with His people. We are not cut off, except as 
we cut ourselves off. Infinite blessing is ours if we 
but receive it. Open your soul and open your eyes. 
Then you may perceive that all things are moving 
toward better. This is true both of individuals and 
of the nation. Never was there an age so packed 
with blessing as this. But in our blindness we turn 
from the Source of it all. We are so taken up with 
the Tiiere incidents, with the mere appearance of 
things, that we lose sight altogether of the reality 
behind the mask. 

There is nothing the matter with the sects except 
that they follow man-made opinions and exclude each 
other. They divide and rend the garment of Christ 
when they should be united and whole. But the 
Spirit of Truth is working and all at last must see. 
The day of faction and of division is passing. We 
should be a united people for God and for the lib- 
erty that comes with the consciousness of Him. 

The voice of the Spirit speaks ever to the souls 
of men. But most of us are so external we hear it 
not. Blessed is he who knows the voice and heeds 
the call. Doubt shall flee far from him and the 
trivialities that annoy will lose their hold upon him. 
He will be filled with the spirit of love, and his work 
will be a joy. He will be serene in soul and seeming 
misfortunes will not affright or dishearten him. He 
will have no desire other than what is for the good 
of all ; and he will be happy to merge himself in the 
larger being. This is the losing of self in the 
national, the racial and the divine life. And only 
in thus sinking our personalities do we come into 
our real individualities. 



142 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

We can only truly gain heaven by taking every- 
body with us. There is no such thing as selfish 
salvation. We must broaden out. We shut our- 
selves up too much in sects and parties. A whole 
nation is none too big for us, a whole humanity, a 
whole life in God. Co-operation and unity consti- 
tute the movement and trend of to-day. Get in 
touch with the spirit of the age, which makes for 
the larger consciousness, the wider selfhood. 

It is in this sense that the national life grows 
beautiful. This land has a divine mission of lead- 
ing the world onward to God's kingdom on earth. 
Here are to be the prophets, the truth-tellers, the 
leaders, for the New Time. Here is to be over- 
thrown the Baal-worship of the dollar and to be en- 
throned that of the true God, the spirit of Universal 
Love. Here the Son of Man, the God-filled Hu- 
manity, is to come in all His glory. 

All the history of the ages trend toward this land. 
All the heritage of the past is laid in her lap. All 
the races come to her shores. All the hopes of the 
world focus here. All the dreams of liberty are here 
realized, and yet more largely to be realized. 

The gates of the old Palestine are closed ; but the 
doors of the Modern Palestine are open, that 
through them the King of Glory may enter in. 



THE GREAT SOULS 

Every crisis has produced a man equal to its 
need. The prayer of the race for a leader has 
always been answered. 

The Aryan migration had its Odin. The Jewish 
exodus brought forth its Moses. Thermopylae pro- 
duced its Leonidas. When the cry of Rome was 
for some one to withstand Hannibal, there came a 
Scipio. When the Pharisaism of the Jewish church 
and the materialism of the world called for a re- 
generation, God gave mankind a Jesus. When, in 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the corruption 
and despotism of the Christian church called for 
reform, there was a Luther. When the profligacy 
of the English monarchy grew unbearable, there 
was a Cromwell. When the fortunes of France were 
at the lowest ebb, there was a Joan of Arc. When 
an antidote was needed after the debauch of the 
French Revolution, there was a Napoleon. When 
the American colonies would throw off their bond- 
age, there was a Washington. When Italy aspired 
for union and freedom, there was a Garibaldi. 
When Germany was ready for amalgamation, there 
was a Bismarck. When a nation was to be saved 
and a race emancipated, there was a Lincoln. 

Scattered all down the ages are the prophets and 
truth-tellers, who dared combat the lies of power 
and to turn the thoughts of men to God. When the 
Grecian deities were crumbling, there were a Socra- 
tes and a Plato to tell of better and more spiritual 
things. When paganism was waning, there was a 



144 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

Paul to carry the glad tidings of a new faith. When 
the Renaissance came, and with it the demand for 
a deeper learning, there were a Bruno and Galileo 
to lay the groundwork of a later science. When it 
was time for supplanting the old Norse mythology, 
there was an Olaf to hold aloft the banner of the 
White Christ. When the world needed a more 
spiritual interpretation of the gospels, there was a 
Swedenborg. When the serfs of Russia aspire to a 
higher freedom, there is a Tolstoi. 

There is nothing more ennobling than hero wor- 
ship, so long as we adore the principle rather than 
the personality; for it is through the great, inspired 
souls that God most reveals Himself. How poverty- 
stricken we would be without a Shakespeare, a 
Goethe, an Emerson, or a Whitman! What a new 
and luminous view of Nature we would miss with- 
out a Darwin or a Spencer! How much of beauty 
would have been left out of the world without a 
Michael Angelo, a Raphael, a Beethoven, or a 
Wagner ! 

These exalted spirits, that rise into the Universal, 
refresh the world by telling it of immortal springs. 
They reveal the leternal immanence of the Over- 
Soul, from which come all life and glory and love. 
They lift us out of our pettiness and filth, our nar- 
row creeds and outworn customs. They give us a 
glimpse of broader prospects, of higher duties, of 
deeper sympathies, of nobler destinies. They fur- 
nish us, as it were, a fleeting view of the sunlight 
falling upon the hills of a better world. 

If the supply of these illuminated souls is gauged 
by the demand, then the world should soon be filled 
with such a galaxy of prophets, poets, teachers and 
leaders as no single age has known. Never was 



THE GREAT SOULS 145 

•the call so widespread or insistent. Never was the 
need greater. 

Never was there such a longing for the light, 
such a thirsting for the truth, such a hungering for 
the bread of life. Never was there the appearance 
of such a crucial age ahead. Never, since the song 
of the angels over Bethlehem, was there such a 
prayer for the Christ-principle in human hearts. 

The Infinite Spirit of Love will not let these de- 
mands go unsatisfied, these prayers go unanswered. 
He has responded in every age heretofore. And 
now, as the need is greater, the answer will be more 
abundant. The materialism, greed and social in- 
justice in the world are so deeply rooted that it will 
take a violent upheaval to overthrow them; and in 
such times it requires spirits that can ride the storm 
and calm the waves. 

The whole world is slowly awakening to the new 
light. The voices of protest and prophecy, a few 
years ago so few and far between, are now swelling 
into a chorus. The practical religion and restless 
civilization of the Occident are stirring the Orient 
into new life, and in return the Ancient Wisdom of 
the Orient is flooding the Occident like a sunrise. 

God does not make mistakes. To Him Time is 
not. Empires and races may vanish. He only 
keeps in view the larger purpose. What seem to us 
great revolutions and catastrophes are to Him but 
incidents in the working out of the Cosmical Plan. 
He sees always the goal — His kingdom on the earth. 
But it is a part of the law that man himself must 
attain this kingdom. God, the All-Father, starts 
His children out in the Universe for themselves. He 
differentiates them into individuals. He gives them 
freedom that thereby they may learn self-reliance; 



I46 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

that they may wrestle with the forces and attain 
strength ; that they may gather experience and grow 
to the uttermost. But, starting them thus to make 
their own way, He gives them some little reminis- 
cence, a spiritual remembrance of home. It is only 
a faint gleam, but it is enough that if they follow 
it, they can work back, work back, work back 
through the aeons to Him. This is their ultimate 
goal — to know themselves and again to come into 
harmony with the All-Loving Father. 

But while they are free, He does not leave them 
unaided. He gives them the lights of revelations 
to illuminate their shadowed paths. He sends them 
a Christ to point the way. He speaks to them 
through seers and sages. He inspires great leaders 
to direct them over the rougher places. He puts 
melody into the hearts of the poets, that the journey 
may be cheered by song. And He ever works in the 
souls of all that are ready to listen, encouraging, 
soothing and stirring them to nobler aspirations and 
brighter hopes. 

The God-led leaders ! The great-souled masters ! 
Through them we worship the Infinite Source of 
Power and Wisdom. For they are, at the moment, 
the instruments through which He speaks unto 
the race. 



HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU 

Men search through all the external world for 
happiness, and miss it because its source and 
home are within themselves. They look 
everywhere for peace, and do not find it because 
their own souls and bodies are at war. They seek 
in conditions about them for liberty, but do not 
discover it, for the reason that the inner truth alone 
can make them free. They grope through all the 
world of matter for God, not knowing that if they 
will but look they can perceive Him in the temples 
of their own souls. 

The Father is not afar. He stands in the inner 
court of your spirit; and if you will but open the 
outer chambers of your life to Him He will flood 
your whole being, even to the most external shell 
of it, with light, love, wisdom, health and peace. 

Religion is not a form, a ceremony, a creed or 
the worship of an external image, but it is the pure 
mind, the loving heart and the union of your own 
spirit with that of God. 

There is no mystery about it, no far-fetched in- 
terpretations, no cant or flummery, Pharisaism or 
pretense; but it is simply a divine inflowing of the 
life ineffable that thrills and warms you like nothing 
on earth. 

But when thou prayest go not as the formalists 
do, who love to be heard of men, but withdraw into 
the secret chamber of thine own soul, and the 
Father who dwelleth in that secret chamber will 
hear thee and will reward thee openly. 



148 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

The kingdom of heaven is not a place, with time 
and space relations. It is a state of the soul, and 
you can enter into it to-day. You need not wait 
for death. Paradise is within you. But, like the 
prodigal son, you have wandered far from it, out 
into the external, to feed on the husks of life with 
the swine, in the wallows of matter. Return in- 
ward, where the Father waits you, and claim your 
inheritance. 

The Christ is not a distant dream. He was not 
killed. He is living. He is with you. He went 
ahead to show you the way. He is one with the 
Father. Follow Him inward and upward and He 
will lift you to the same sweet plane of conscious- 
ness. 

These truths are so simple and so plain that it is 
hard to comprehend why all men cannot see; and 
they could, did they not live wholly in the material, 
with their thoughts centered on greed, sensuality 
and selfish distinction over their neighbors. For a 
truth, they feed with the swine on the husks of life. 

Religion is about to take a step upward — the 
greatest step since Jesus of Nazareth — the revelation 
of God in the individual soul. 

What are material treasures after all? What 
does it matter whether you have much or little of 
them? The real treasures are yours, and they are 
free. The others bring strife and contention. These 
give peace. The others pass away in a day. These 
are eternal. The others are but shadows. These are 
substance. The others are outside of you and 
never can become part of you. These are within. 
They flow from all the universe through you. If 
you but claim them, they become you yourself. The 



HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU 149 

more you draw into oneness with them, the more 
their glory grows on you. 

Like a light, God's life flows into you; it leads 
ever up through the infinite distance ; if your heart 
opens to it, as a magnet it draws you; and as you 
rise there comes to you a higher happiness, a fuller 
truth, a diviner peace day by day. 

"Yes," you say, "all this sounds well. But how 
am I to know ?" By simply opening your soul, with 
a prayer to the Father that dwells therein. The way 
to know that a certain realm exists is to go into 
that realm. It matters not how much other people 
may tell you. You still doubt until you see for 
yourself. 

If someone were to describe a beautiful tropical 
isle, a veritable material Paradise, you would say, 
if you had the time and means, I will go and find it. 
I will enjoy its beautiful scenery, its fruits and 
flowers, its soft skies and verdure, the songs of its 
birds, the shining of its fountains, its green fields 
and forests, its perfumed airs and eternal summers, 
for myself. 

But someone tells you of the kingdom of heaven. 
In some way you have gained the vague idea that 
you must wait until death before you reach it. 
That is not true. You can go to it now. It will 
cost you neither time nor money. It is not a ma- 
terial Paradise. But as you more and more per- 
ceive its beauty, all things material will fade into 
dust and ashes as compared to it. How will you 
reach it? Here is a chart of the journey: 

From the station of a pure heart, on the train of 
prayer, through the valley of Silence, speed on into 
the far interior of a country called Consciousness. 
You will pass out of a sub-realm known as Material 



150 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

into another termed Soul. At last you will reach 
a temple known as the Spirit. Herein is the king- 
dom of Heaven. The outward eye has not seen, 
the outward ear has not heard, the outward sense 
has not perceived aught of its glories. These belong 
only to the intuition of the inner man and cannot be 
told in the language of physical speech. Be it 
enough to say that Love, Light and Truth flow 
into this kingdom forever. 

Men have searched through the world for Eldo- 
rado and the Fountain of Eternal Youth. Their 
souls had intimated to them that there were such 
a realm and such a fountain; but they knew not 
where to look. Through long and weary years they 
explored distant lands and lost life in searching for 
its immortal source. They made the mistake of 
looking in the external for what is only found in 
the internal. They went afar # off for what was at 
their very doorstep. Eldorado is the land of the 
Soul. The Fountain of Eternal Youth sends aloft 
its singing and shining waters in the inner court 
of the Temple of the Spirit. They are not in the 
material at all. They are within you. 

We have searched through Nature for know- 
ledge, while neglecting the highest of all know- 
ledge, which is at our very hand. 

We have looked through material forms and cere- 
monies for religion and have missed the highest 
religion which our souls would have revealed to us. 

Have we read the Master to so little purpose as 
not to see that all His utterances simply pile precept 
upon precept and symbol upon symbol, each one 
stating in a different way this precious truth? 

Man in little is the microcosm of the All. He is 
an image of the Universal. He is a mirror of the 



HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU 151 

Over-Soul. He is related to all things, contains all 
potentiality within him. God is immanent with 
him, not merely at times, but always, an ever-active 
Cause. Even the pagan Greeks apprehended this 
truth when they said : "Know thyself." 

Wouldst perceive heaven, O man? Clear thy 
mind of all impurities. Take all hatred and self- 
seeking from thy heart. Go into the silence of thy 
own soul. Then in faith and love and prayer seek 
the Father. Accustom thyself to know that thou 
art spirit and not flesh, and if thou art ready to 
leave the husks and the swine of material greed the 
Father who dwelleth in spirit will show thee thine 
inheritance, for behold the kingdom of heaven is 
within thee. 



IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD 

IN pure being there is no shadow, there is no dis- 
cord, there is no limitation, there is nothing but 

overwhelming tides of light, of love, of faith, of 
truth and of things universal. The soul has no 
sense of space and time, of personality, of particular 
manifestations; it only has the realization of con- 
sciousness extending from the amoeba to the arch- 
angel, it only basks in a golden sunlight that is all- 
pervading, it only has the awareness of the infinite, 
it only floats out and out and out on the tides of the 
spirit, utterly content to be and to worship. 

Music is the only language to express things like 
these. If every sentence were a song, then it were 
worth while to speak. But words express concep- 
tions of objects or actions, and what place have 
such where there is only pure and infinite light? 

God is like a sea of love, of faith, of truth, a 
consciousness that is universal and an objective 
manifestation that is infinite in its variety. 

How express the inexpressible? It is as though 
one had walked with an angel and were trying to 
tell of it in language to be comprehended at the 
corner grocery. I signal to you across the silence, 
but my signal can mean little of the song in my 
heart. Truth cannot be measured in the few guttural 
sounds of the Fiji islanders, and our word-vessels 
are but little larger. Before the sweetest and deep- 
est things of life our lips fall silent. At best we 
have but a few symbols and signs into which to 
translate infinity. 



IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD 153 

Did you ever gaze upon a sunset where the gold- 
tipped clouds seemed a stairway leading away into 
another world? Did you ever hear a robin's song 
in the early dawn, whose notes floating through the 
dewy leaves about your window were so sweet that 
you almost broke your heart in trying to perceive 
the shades of their meaning that just escaped you? 
Did you ever touch another soul till you entered 
into its consciousness and lived its life? Did you 
ever make yourself a part of the trees, of the flowers, 
and of elemental things ? Did you ever gaze upon a 
far mountain range until you became merely an 
impersonal vision, living in the thing you contem- 
plated ? If so, you have some faint analogy of that 
which the soul perceives when it awakens in the 
consciousness of God. 

Before that can be, every shred of self must be 
purged away. There must be not the faintest 
shadow of misunderstanding or resentment between 
any soul and your own. You must seek in the purest 
motive of truth and love. You must abide in the 
single purpose of helping your fellow men.- You 
must become as a little child, with the innocence 
and faith of the child-heart. You must surrender 
utterly, lay down your life on the altar of un- 
questioning love, and with a pure prayer for light 
await the quickening touch of the Spirit of Truth. 

These are but disjointed exclamations, little cries 
of delight at some newly-revealed beauty, inarticu- 
late attempts to utter the unutterable. If they con- 
vey some faint hint, however, of the joy that gave 
them birth they will not be wholly in vain. 

It is not necessary to die a physical death in order 
to come into the consciousness of God. It is only 



154 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

necessary to die to self. It is only necessary to bring 
the body into perfect harmony with the soul, and 
both into concord with universal love. 

The highest object of living in the physical is the 
attainment of heaven on earth. You are as much 
an immortal soul now as you will ever be. Then 
why wait till after death to climb the delectable 
mountains ? 

Enoch walked with God; Gautama saw veil after 
veil removed until he gazed upon the very heart of 
things; Jesus lived in perfect identity with the 
Father; Paul saw himself hid with Christ in God; 
Swedenborg talked with angels and beheld the 
spiritual sunlight falling upon the hills beyond. 
This earth has been glorified by the feet of those who 
brought heaven with them. Why should we shut 
ourselves out from the kingdom? We are not di- 
vided from them except in our consciousness. We 
are as dear to the universal love as any. No thing 
that any human soul has known is withheld from 
us. God is not farther from us than He was from 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We can be conscious 
of Him as they were conscious of Him. He never 
withdraws Himself from His children. It is we 
who put up barriers, not He. He is as near as our 
souls are near. Why should we not be aware of 
Him ? He will be to us as much as we will let Him 
be. In the inner temples of our own spirit He abides. 
Why not feel Him, why not know Him now ? 

In the attitude of love to all that is, we may come 
into His presence. Love is not gush, or mere senti- 
ment. It is a yearning toward, a kindliness, an ap- 
preciation, an understanding. It looks on all beings 
as its own. It is the universal creative agency. It is 
God Himself. 



IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD 155 

To him who comes into the consciousness of God 
narrowness is impossible. Wherever men are, there 
he is. No life is excluded from him. He sees truth 
in all things, truth in all religions. He is a citizen of 
the world, and through love for his family and his 
country expresses love for all mankind. All life to 
him is holy, whether expressed in the Christ or the 
worm at his feet. He is so full of the Father he 
has no room for hate. He knows not only that his 
own soul is immortal, but that all things are im- 
mortal ; that there is nothing but immortality in the 
universe. He knows that manifestations come and 
go, but that the thing manifested- is eternal. Being 
in the consciousness of God he is in the conscious- 
ness of all things ; for the whole cannot do less than 
include every part. 

All truth is axiomatic and is capable of simple 
statement. It is so clear that most look through it 
and see nothing. It is so apparent that all accept 
it on the mere statement. Yet it is infinite and only 
as much comes to you as you are capable of taking. 
While you think you see it all, others may see depth 
after depth beyond the limits of your vision. All 
the universe is made up of correspondences and you 
may but see the correspondences on one plane. Grow 
not spiritually vain over one glimpse, for there are 
worlds upon w r orlds undiscovered. 

Be pure in heart, cleansed from all taint of un- 
worthy motive; abide in faith, love and truth; be 
child-like in spirit; be sweet in your attitude, with- 
out guile and without condemnation ; yearn ever for 
the larger light; and sometime, like a revelation 
from on high, you will come into the consciousness 
of God. 



SEEK ONLY THE HIGHEST 

Many are deterred from seeking religion be- 
cause there are hypocrites who profess it. 
Would these same people cease trying to 
make money because there are counterfeit coins in 
circulation? A thing must never be condemned be- 
cause it has imitations. Rather are these uninten- 
tional testimonials to its worth. For, were it with- 
out merit, no one. would care to imitate it. 

The fact that there are wolves in sheep's clothing 
is no reflection on the sheep. That there are imi- 
tation diamonds does not detract from the value 
of the genuine stone. That anyone assumes a virtue 
which he does not possess is an unconscious tribute 
to that virtue. 

Neither can there be any imitation where there is 
not a genuine article to be imitated. For there 
would be no model. Nor would there be any in- 
centive. Men only counterfeit those things which 
people esteem. The genuine always precedes the 
spurious. So the existence of the spurious always 
proves that somewhere is the genuine. 

The fact that there are imitation religionists is 
very sincere flattery to the true religionists. That 
there are hypocrites is all the more reason everyone 
else should seek to be really good. All is not false. 
There is truth somewhere. The only thing for us 
is to find that truth. 

There is one rock of safety. That is God. Not 
what anybody says of God, but the supreme good- 
ness and love that in your own soul you feel to be. 



SEEK ONLY THE HIGHEST 157 

This can be trusted. All else may fail. This abides. 
Go to this Perfect and you can be deceived no 
longer. You feel this to be true because your soul 
knows it. All falsehood vanishes away from this 
Presence, as the mist and darkness vanish away 
from the sunlight. Kneel to the Father. Commune 
with Him in soul. And you will rest in faith, love 
and truth. 

After all, much of the hypocrisy we think we see 
in others comes only from our own misunderstand- 
ing of them. We are never qualified to judge an- 
other until we can put ourselves in his place, see 
through his eyes and feel with his consciousness. 
After that, we shall not desire to judge him. Our 
main concern is to get right ourselves. Then we 
shall be surprised to see how nearly everyone else 
is right. 

If you want to realize how beautiful the world 
is, get beautiful in your own spirit. It is truly 
marvelous what a transformation it works. Try it. 

A pessimist always advertises his own interior 
condition. He projects his inharmonies outward 
and imagines the whole universe a discord. 

The world can only be as fair, or as good, or as 
true to us as we permit it to be. If our mental 
glasses are colored yellow, we are apt to imagine 
more or less of a yellow streak in everyone else. 
If we scowl at folks, they are pretty apt to scowl 
at us, or cease looking at us at all. Whatever our 
attitude toward the universe, in the very nature of 
the case, will be the attitude of the universe 
toward us. 

If we are true ourselves, we shall have little 
trouble in finding the true in others. So when we 
get an idea that everyone else is something of a 



158 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

hypocrite, it. is time to take a little of the hypocrisy 
out of our own hearts. It is. Try it. Then ob- 
serve how much more genuine other folks seem 
after the operation. 

Seek for truth, yearning for it as a man in the 
desert yearns for the cooling springs at which he 
drank in his boyhood. Not only seek for it, but be 
it in your own life. Then you will not be deceived ; 
and then the false side of others will not appear 
to you. 

Religion, rightly understood, is the love of the 
genuine. The devil has been called the father of 
lies, these masks and seemings of things with which 
men delude themselves. 

Live the thing for which you pray. Is it success 
you desire? Live success, think success, will suc- 
cess, be success. Would you have love? Be loving. 
Do you long for rest? Be tranquil, reposeful and 
poised. Thus you can rest in action. Do you lack 
faith? Believe in everything about you, in your 
fellows, in yourself, in all that is. Your belief, if 
you truly believe, will not be disappointed. Do you 
yearn for God? Be Godlike. Have compassion 
unto all things. Be pure in thought. Help and in- 
spire all you touch. Cast out evil from your heart, 
not only the deed, but the concept that there is such 
a thing as evil. Be master of your own body, your 
own environment, your own thought, your own 
feelings, your own life. Do you say you cannot? 
O, but you can. Remember what is promised to 
him that overcometh. He becomes master. Nothing 
longer has power over him for hurt. Then he can 
know God. 

The highest is for you. Be content with nothing 
less. You make your own world, your own heaven, 



SEEK ONLY THE HIGHEST 159 

your own hell. Nothing is in your way but your- 
self. You are absolutely free. The delusion that 
you are in bondage in any way is the very father of 
lies. You are free, free in God, free to come into 
the very perfection of your own nature. 

Know yourself. Look into the depths of your 
own soul. Come into your heritage. Claim your 
birthright. You are divinely here, with the uni- 
versal love enfolding you. Why should you be 
willing to stop short of the very last round of the 
ladder? But the last round of the ladder is the 
consciousness of God, the fullness of life, the knowl- 
edge of immortality, the sense of infinite freedom, 
the mastery of self — and he who has mastered self 
has mastered all things. 

Do not be mean in your aspirations. There is no 
goal too far for you to reach. Point your footsteps 
up the shining way. 



GOING HOME 

Sometimes we grow tired of feeding on the husks 
of life. We have tried them all, and find them 
unsatisfying. We have followed the phantom 
of riches until we have learned that it has nothing 
of the finer and higher to give us. We have sounded 
the heights and depths of fame, until we have dis- 
covered it is but food for egotism. We have tasted 
the fruits of pleasure, only to have them pall. Still 
there was an inner yearning unsatisfied, a great soul 
hunger unfilled. And in the stillness, after the roar 
of trade, the carousals and the plaudits, died away, 
we have wondered if there were not something more 
worth while. Are not these but transient things 
that pass away? Are they not husks rather than 
food for the real self? Have we not wandered 
away? Is there not some reminiscence in the soul, 
that "comes from a far, dim childhood, where we 
knew a home of peace and a loving father? And 
somehow, as we think of it, there grows upon us a 
longing for its rest. We have been as the prodigal 
son, and have spent our soul substance in riotous 
living. When we were allured by the glitter and 
enchantment of the world, we have forgotten. But 
now that we have seen the tinsel of it all, now that 
we have sounded its shallows, now that we have 
seen its vice unmasked and hideous, now that we 
know its apples of selfishness contain but ashes, 
now our thoughts return to the immortal fields, the 
living brooks, the spiritual sunshine, the content- 
ment and loving kindness we knew about the Home 



GOING HOME 



from which we have wandered. The very thought 
of it touches us with an ineffable calm. A foun- 
tain of joy springs within us. The hardness of the 
world passes, and we are again as a little child. We 
are humble in spirit, and are ready to take even the 
most menial place, just so we can be in the blessed 
atmosphere once more. We are no longer worthy 
to be considered a son, but we want to be at Home. 
So from the very soul of our soul we cry, "I will 
arise and go to my Father/' 

And think you not, in the ineffable Love, is room 
for us there? Know you not the joy over the one 
that is found? The great Father-Heart has been 
with us in all our wanderings. The arms are open, 
the place in the Home is waiting. There is a great 
feast of the food of Life waiting for us. There we 
can eat and be filled. 

But do not think we must die to go Home. That 
has been the mistake of all the ages. We are as 
much a spirit this moment as we ever shall be. We 
are in Eternity now. We can arise and go to our 
Father to-day. 

Not in some dim hereafter are we to gain the 
kingdom, but this very hour. 

We are souls, not bodies. We are children of 
God, not of the dust. We are fashioned of eternal 
substance, not of passing shadows. There is the 
Other Self within us that is the real I. How long 
will it be till the glorious meaning of that truth 
bursts upon our consciousness? 

The thing, that knows I am, cannot die. It is as 
eternal as the heavens in which it lives. Within 
you is there no reminiscence of this truth? Is there 
not something that tells you of it so that you know ? 



l62 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

Is there not a self far within you that stirs and 
awakens at the call? 

Do you not remember how the Christ spoke of 
the little ones? "But in heaven their angels, which 
do always look on the face of my Father." What 
did he mean by "their angels/' unless it were their 
own selves, their souls ? You are not different. Get 
acquainted with your angel. 

Awaken. Know that you are immortal. Know 
that the thing that thinks is substance ; all else is but 
manifestation. And know that anything that is 
substance can never pass away. 

"I think, therefore I am." I am, therefore I ever 
shall be. Real being cannot die. It is a part of the 
eternal life of the universe. 

This truth of the soul life is the cornerstone of 
all religions. Forms come and go. Systems arise 
and fall. But the spirit lives on. About it, like a 
kaleidoscope, life revolves with its ever changing 
variety of manifestation. But the spirit -is ever the 
same. From everlasting to everlasting, it is Alpha 
and Omega, the beginning that never began and 
the ending that has no end. It is this we worship. 
Creeds die. Faiths are as various as the brains that 
conceive them. But the spirit abides. As it was 
when Krishna bowed before it, so it is now. It has 
not changed since Osiris. It is in no wise different 
from what it was when it shone through the life 
and deeds of Jesus. Men babble about their little 
dogmas until the great Silence swallows both. They 
are as children, and the infinite love and compas- 
sion chides them not. But their half-lights and their 
wranglings, their images and their rituals, their in- 
stitutions and their formulas, pass like the figures 
of a dream, while in eternal beneficence the spirit 
continues forever. 



GOING HOME 163 

That spirit we call God. It is the Father to 
which we turn. Forms, symbols and names matter 
little. But to hold to this substance of Life matters 
everything. 

We wrangle about the personality of the All-in- 
All. What child's play! Let us leave it to our 
souls. They know better. He is personal to us be- 
cause we are personal. We must phrase Him in 
the terms of our own limitations. That is our rela- 
tion to Him, and conversely must be His relation 
to us. In other words, the Universe is to us what- 
ever our consciousness permits it to be. 

It is the voice of the immortal within us that 
calls us to return to an awareness of the spirit. That 
is the going back to the Father. That is leaving the 
husks of the outward for the food that satisfies, 
the bread of Life. 

Awaken, O soul ! Turn back to the Home from 
which thou hast wandered. Long enough hast thou 
fed with the swine. Go and claim the heritage that 
awaits thee. There are the eternal meadow T s, the 
life-giving streams. There thy Father cometh out 
to meet thee. Thou canst go to Him now, while yet 
on earth. And from His mansion, O soul — from 
the windows of its spiritual sight — canst thou truly 
see the beauty and gladness of the world. 



THE RECEPTIVE ATTITUDE 

IN their heart of hearts all men desire what is 
best. In their normal moments they wish to be 
in harmony with that which is true and good and 
right. In these times, which are really the only sane 
times men have, they desire to be at peace with their 
fellows; they want every being to prosper and 
would be happy to see the whole world blessed; 
passions are lulled, animosities lose their edge, and, 
in place of these, come a certain tranquility and 
good will. The world with its clamor is silent and 
the soul has a touch of divine peace. It is now we 
come nearest to God ; it is now we are in the blessed, 
receptive attitude, when our outer minds are some- 
what at rest and the inner has voice ; it is now that 
we can open our spirits for the inflow of love and 
light from the eternal. 

Each one has experienced some such interval of 
calm. You felt it good simply to be. You were not 
struggling after things. You were content to be 
in tune with nature and with your own soul. The 
self had died away and you sensed the universal. 
These are the really divine moments. These are the 
times that we are truly touching the kingdom, if we 
only knew. These are the times when we are in fact 
natural, our true and better selves. These are the 
times when we feel the things that make poets. The 
artificialities of life have gone. We have slipped 
off our delusions as a cloak. We are simply what 
we are. We come as little children. We cease 
cudgeling our brains about things. We simply feel 



THE RECEPTIVE ATTITUDE 165 

and know and are content. We do not try to find 
reasons to convince us of the existence of God; 
everything makes us aware that God is. We grow 
impersonal and know in a way our kinship and 
oneness with the trees, the sunlight, our fellowmen 
and the life and spirit back of all. 

In the larger sense that comes to us in the groves, 
on the mountains or by the sea do we gain the self- 
less sense that is on the very threshold of worship. 

This is the attitude of mind in which you must 
be if you would know of things spiritual. This is 
the sweet humility, the letting go, that is necessary 
before you can come into the receptive state. Many 
things will help you in reaching it — a beautiful view, 
quietude, a great soul touching your own through 
a book, anything that gives you a glimpse or a 
breath of the universal, anything that takes you 
out of your petty self, with its worries, strifes and 
passions. 

It is not such a difficult or wonderful thing, this. 
We have all known it. It is so easy, so simple, so 
unobtrusive, we think little of it. And yet this very 
state of mind is the approach to the temple, the holy 
of holies. It is the base of the mount of vision. It 
is the letting go of the outward, so that we may 
take hold of the inward, or, rather, so that it may 
take hold of us. It is the stilling of the outward 
tumult, so that we may hear the inward harmony. 

Not through intellectual quibbles, fine-spun 
theories, excitement, sentimentality, self -righteous- 
ness, sanctimonious visage, forms, creeds or cere- 
monies do you come nearer to the Universal Spirit 
we call God, but rather by escaping all these things, 
which are but so many expressions of the self-life 
and rising out of the physical sense of separation 



l66 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

and isolation into the feeling of unity with this Uni- 
versal. It is only when you escape from your own 
bonds and gain the larger freedom that you can 
realize how splendid is all life and how great is your 
own soul. 

The universe will be to you whatever you will 
let it be. Whatever your attitude to it will be its 
attitude to you. It will seem dark and cruel and 
evil and terrible, if you make it so. Or it will hold 
for you an ineffable light and a song of joy, if you 
yourself are attuned to the key of light and joy. 
Nothing is evil except man makes it so. Nothing 
is terrible to him who sees beyond the event to the 
blessing behind it. An unfaltering trust, a faith 
that knows no turning, are the only sane and sensible 
mental attitudes. Any other frame of mind is an 
impeachment of the justice of the universe. When 
you doubt you imply by that very act that there is 
something wrong with the constitution of things. 
That is the most illogical thought in all the world. 
If there were one thing fundamentally wrong with 
the universe everything else would be consigned to 
chaos at once. It is like an arch. If one brick is 
out of place it all tumbles to the ground. 

No. The fault is in your thought, not in the 
world. Learn this — really learn it, not merely in 
your intellect, but in your consciousness — and you 
have solved the riddle of the Sphinx. 

If you would know truth you must be in the 
humble, the teachable, the receptive attitude of mind. 
"Except ye become as little children !" Lay down 
your prejudices and preconceived opinions. Put 
aside the self and be in the frame of mind to say, 
'Thy will, not mine, be done." Then open the 
windows of your soul and let the light flow in. It 



THE RECEPTIVE ATTITUDE 167 

will come to you as fast as you demand it and are 
ready to receive it. Simply have perfect faith that 
the God of Truth is the all-in-all and that as you 
come into His truth you will know. 

"Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be 
opened unto you, seek and ye shal 1 find." These 
things were all taught by the Master. Only we are 
so far away from Him, both in time and thought, 
and we have piled up such a mass of formalism, 
literalism and intellectualities between us and His 
light, that we do not see. 

The thing He gave to the world is the simple, 
spiritual' faith, divinely natural, sweetly reasonable. 
But so long as we seek it in the letter and the out- 
ward shell, we must fail. "God is spirit" and He 
must be worshiped "in spirit and in truth." "The 
letter kills, but the spirit makes alive." We must lay 
down the outward, quit thrashing around and 
struggling with our outward minds, and perceive 
the truth within. "He who lays down his life for 
My sake shall find it." We must remember in all 
these quotations from the Christ that it is the Spirit 
within that speaks. "The Father within me, He 
doeth the works." That Spirit is living as much 
to-day as it was 1,900 years ago. It may come to 
you. For the Master promised that for anyone that 
sought Him, He and His Father would come to such 
and abide with him. He also promised the Com- 
forter, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth. All 
of His promises, in fact, were spiritual, if truly 
interpreted. He blessed Peter because the thing 
he had seen was not revealed to him by flesh and 
blood. "Upon this rock I found my church." Upon 
what rock? The rock of the Spirit, the only Rock 



l68 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

of Ages that endures after all other things have 
passed away. 

These things are so plain, so simple, so satisfying, 
that it seems all men should see them. But there 
is so much of the outward, the things of this world, 
"the deceitfulness of riches," that get into men's 
hearts, they no longer have the clear vision. 

The only way to find the truth is to desire it; 
honestly, earnestly, deeply desire it. If. you do 
desire it in this way and are willing to lay aside 
all pride of opinion, be assured the truth will come 
to you. Simply let your better self have voice and 
be receptive to the light. 



THE WAY OF LIFE 

Once a boy, who by fraud had taken his brother's 
birthright and blessing, in terror of that 
brother's vengeance fled away from all he 
loved. Oppressed by a sense of guilt, utter weariness 
and loneliness, at last he lay down in the wilderness 
with a stone for a pillow. In his sleep came a 
vision. He saw an infinite stairway leading up- 
ward. Over it poured an ineffable light, in which 
a few distant and fleecy vapors shone golden. On 
the stairway tall, sweet-faced angels in dazzling 
robes ascended and descended. At the far summit 
of this double line of the immortals appeared a figure 
with a sun-burst around it. From Him in words 
of silence a message of peace and promise flowed 
into the soul of the sleeper. When the youth arose 
the sense of desolation and weariness was gone. He 
felt a new strength, a new hope, a new life. His 
guilt slipped from him and a nobler manhood 
awakened within. He said, "Surely God is in this 
place," so he marked the spot and called it Bethel. 
Ages later another soul wrote a song in memory 
of the young man's vision. It was a simple song, 
with but a single thought running through it. But 
no song ever reached the world as did this. It has 
touched the heart of the mourner, cheered the soul 
of the despondent and given to the spirit of the be- 
liever a sweet assurance that was like heaven itself. 
It has been murmured by dying lips and has been 
breathed like a sigh by those who were bowed under 
some great disappointment or sorrow. Sometimes 



170 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

it has been accompanied by the falling of tears and at 
others has rung out with a joy and triumph un- 
speakable. It has come brokenly from the lonely 
ones in the deserts of life and has swelled out in 
power from every home and church in Christendom. 
Many are the souls that have been wafted nearer the 
throne upon its waves of harmony. Inspired by 
the vision that came to the lonely and heart-sick 
boy, has come the dearest, sweetest hymn that ever 
fell from human lips. And as he was inspired and 
uplifted by his dream, so millions of others in our 
own time have been inspired and uplifted by the 
strains of "Nearer, My God, to Thee/' 

The way of life is a golden road that leads up- 
ward, ever into a fuller consciousness of God. Only 
those can walk in this path who see by the light of 
truth, are sustained by the strength of faith and are 
drawn by the power of love. All the weight of 
personal desires and of the false self must have 
slipped from them. They must have surrendered 
utterly to the will of God and laid down the lower 
life that they may find the higher. They must be 
pure of heart and as open in mind as a little child. 
They must thirst for the water and hunger for the 
bread of the Spirit. And last and greatest of all they 
must be filled with good will for their fellow men. 

The way of life leads through the Christ-con- 
sciousness. 

Through the Man of Galilee spoke the Universal 
Spirit. In Him was the infinite love of God to 
man. He was lifted up into oneness with the Divine. 
He was the measureless manifestation of faith, of 
truth, of love. He was in the Father, the Father 
in Him. He had come into the full consciousness 
of His sonship. He knew the law, He saw both 



THE WAY OF LIFE - 171 

worlds, He was master of all the forces. Expressing 
through a body, he yet felt and lived purely in the 
spiritual. All souls are in the universal, if they 
but knew, if they but knew. He did know. He was 
that universal, including all and in all. He was the 
way, the truth and the life. 

He yet lives, is yet the universal, and is yet the 
way, the truth and the life. There is no personality 
in this. There is the Christ spirit. That is in all 
who will open their hearts to it. That is the presence 
of the Infinite Soul in the soul of man. 

It is so hard to say these things. However 
phrased, they are liable to misinterpretation. After 
all, words, forms, symbols are only aids. They 
come and go. It is the substance we need. Our 
expressions are faulty, but the Infinite Spirit is per- 
fect. It is for that we yearn. Whatever he o lps us 
in reaching it should be cherished. Whatever 
hinders us should be swept aside. We bicker and 
quarrel over terms and thus hold ourselves from 
our divine inheritance. They are not worth our 
breath. Many stumble at the idea of personality, 
when it should be perfectly plain to us that God 
seems personal only because we are personal. In 
other words, our attitude to the Infinite is reflected 
back to us. The universe is to us whatever we 
let it be. 

Why permit such things to shut out from us the 
light? It is the universal love we want, the uni- 
versal faith, the universal truth. It is the Christ life. 
That is the way. Happy is he who finds it. 

The Christ yet speaks to us as truly as He did 
to the multitudes of old. He is ever with us, if we 
have room for Him. This is not a distant dream, 



172 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

a pleasant myth, or a preacher's phrase. It is a 
vital truth, as near to us as our souls are near. 

How are our eyes to be opened? How long will 
we turn away from the only thing that is really 
worth our while? How long will we miss the way 
of life? 

Here are the waters, the immortal -springs. He 
that thirsteth let him drink freely. The draught 
will be sweet to his soul. Here is the path up 
the divine heights of being. He that climbs to their 
summits shall look beyond to the sunrise over im- 
mortal fields. 

He that mourns shall be comforted. God shall 
wipe away all tears from his eyes. He shall be filled 
with an everlasting joy. He shall arise from his 
dream of age and bitterness to know that youth 
is eternal and happiness is for him, if he will but 
take it. The false fears of life will affright him no 
more. The desire for things that are not worth 
while will die away from him. 

Why will you doubt ? Your own soul knows the 
truth. Give it a chance. Cease placing barriers in 
the way of your own progress. They alone do 
things who believe. They trust in truth, in right, 
in good; and these are but other names for God. 
All things are built on faith. So let your own life 
be built. 

Far up the golden road of the spirit stands the 
Master beckoning. He wants you, for you are His 
own. Turn and look. When once you behold that 
supernal vision, all else will seem but poor beside it. 
It will not be hard then to cease doing the things 
you should not do, for the desire of them will die. 
Your heart will turn longingly to the golden road 
and soon your feet will be pointed up its shining 



THE WAY OF LIFE 173 

ways. Once let that vision sink into your thought 
and never again can you eradicate it. It will grow 
upon you until the beauty of all else fades before it. 
Then you cannot turn away from the figure on the 
shining height above you. Like a magnet He will 
draw your soul until at last you have no desire but 
to follow, follow onward. 

All this is but a symbol. Yet if it help you to 
take hold of the substance of faith, truth and love, 
it will not have been in vain. 

The way of life is the shining stair of Jacob's 
dream. When you are desolate and alone, sick and 
weary and fleeing from your own misdeeds, may 
God visit your tired eyes with some such emblem 
of the immortal truth. But whether you see the 
vision or not, let its lesson sink into your heart as 
you sing that sweetest of all songs, "Nearer, My 
God, to Thee." 



THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER 

It is as natural for a soul to turn to God as it is 
for a flower to turn to the sun. In both the action 
is prompted by need, for it is thus they draw 
unto themselves life and strength. The blossom 
has no words. It needs none. The sunlight does 
not withhold its blessings because it is not asked 
according to set formula. So the soul requires no 
phrasing for its prayer. The Father knows its lack 
before it calls. According to its receptivity and 
faith is it answered. Its own want and its own 
attitude determine the response. It is given what- 
ever it can take. A flower cup half closed cannot 
receive as much dew as one fully opened. 

Do men pray nowadays ? True, there are certain 
public addresses delivered to the Lord at the open- 
ing of religious services. These are all very well, 
often are eloquently phrased, and occasionally find 
their way into the papers as high examples of de- 
votional rhetoric. Sometimes they are spoken in 
loud tones, as though God were on a journey and 
it required a voice of some carrying power to reach 
him, or were asleep and it were necessary thus to 
awaken him; and sometimes they are very per- 
suasively and cogently put, as though He needed 
special pleading to win Him over to the petitioner's 
side. More often, however, they are matters of 
formula, uttered by one man for an entire congre- 
gation, the members of which, having been duly 
prayed for, let it go at that, without taking the 
trouble to pray for themselves. This of those who 



THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER 175 

profess religion. The ones who make no such pro- 
fession, it is reasonable to suppose, fail to pray even 
by proxy. 

It still remains true that prayer is the natural 
attitude of the soul. Artificial attitudes are some- 
times superimposed, however, and the spontaneous 
utterance of the inner self is suppressed. There has 
been such a progress in material things, we are so 
wise in our own knowledge, that we forget. 

The question still remains, do men pray now- 
adays? If not, they should be taught to pray, not 
so much in words as in consciousness ; not so much 
at stated times and places as in their constant 
attitude. 

God is. We may differ as to everything else in 
the universe, but whatever our religion, or even lack 
of religion, we come back to that basic truth. God 
is. Empires and systems have risen and fallen, 
creeds have come and gone, scientific theories have 
appeared and disappeared, even entire civilizations 
have vanished with naught but a legend to tell the 
story, but through all the vicissitudes, dimly or 
clearly, has remained the consciousness. God is. 

In Him are life and light for all. He withholds 
nothing. It is we who withhold from ourselves. 
When we turn to Him in perfect self-surrender, 
in love and trust, whatever our souls require is 
granted us. When we give all, we receive all. 

Make of the universal a fountain of health and 
strength. Drink there of the life-giving waters. 
The soul that quaffs of them shall thirst no more. 
Throughout its being it shall feel the divine and 
healing touch. 

Make of the universal a spring of love and joy. 
Take from it until there is left in you no hatred 



176 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

for any creature and life grows like a song. Know 
that you are in the perfect love of the Father, the 
perfect joy of immortality. Let fear and envy de- 
part from you, for you have nothing of which to be 
afraid and no one of whom to be envious. Every- 
thing is for you when you are ready to receive it, 
and you are happy in the happiness of all. You 
have no condemnation in your heart for any other 
being. They are all yours and you would help them. 

Make of the universal a well of faith and truth. 
Draw from its crystal depths draughts of pure in- 
spiration. Know that he whose lips touch these 
waters shall doubt no more and shall see with the 
clear vision. He has learned that as his faith is 
thus is it done unto him. He has dared to trust 
utterly and utter security has come to him in return. 
He has laid hold of the things of God and time 
and circumstance cannot affright him more. His 
faith has made him whole. He has learned that if 
he approaches the universe in an attitude of truth 
nothing but truth can flow back to him. Delusion 
slips from him as a cloak and he is free in the free- 
dom, of God. 

Make of the universal a pillow. There rest in 
perfect content. No more weariness for you, no 
more weeping, no more heart-breaks. You know 
that your own must always come to you; and you 
desire nothing but your own. You know that 
separation is only in seeming, that you are united 
forever to all that belongs to you. You gain perfect 
poise, for you learn that he in the reposeful attitude 
alone is capable of the highest action. You no 
longer have any personal wish to gratify, but are 
content to act in harmony with the universal will. 

All this is prayer, conscious and confident prayer. 



THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER 177 

It asks for nothing but what God wills, and knows 
that what God wills must come. It has given every- 
thing unreservedly into His hands and desires to 
act only for the furtherance of His cause. So far 
as motive goes, -every shred of personal feeling has 
been sacrificed on His altar. The soul that has 
learned thus to lay down self can rest content in 
the universal arms. 

All Nature prays and the prayer is not in vain. 
The trees, as they lift their leaves, like hands to 
heaven, make supplication for the sunlight, the dew 
and the rain. They risk all, for without these they 
would perish. But their faith is perfect and their 
prayer is answered. In the drought their trust fails 
not, and in the tempest they do not complain. Go 
to the oaks, O weak-heart, and learn from them of 
devotion. 

The seed in the earth prays. Its prayer is for that 
which it needs in its growth. In answer come the 
moisture and the elements it requires. It pushes 
up through the dark soil with utter trust that air 
and sunlight are above. It crowds away the clod 
and lifts its cup in prayer for the dewdrop. When 
the sun arises, it turns its leaf to him, praying that 
his energy may infuse it. It regrets not the past 
and fears not the future, but with all its strength 
develops the life that is within it. Go to the seed, 
O ye of little faith, and learn to trust to the germ 
of God within you ; that though planted in the tomb 
shall rise above the clod and grow in the sunlight 
eternal. 

Teach us to pray — not as those who love to be 
heard of men — but in the secret places of the heart 
and in the innocent faith of little children. Teach 
us to pray for a rain of love in the famine of the 



178 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

heart, as Elijah prayed for the tempest on the burnt 
fields of Palestine, knowing in the wisdom of the 
soul that if we have faith even as a grain of mustard 
seed, our prayer must bring its own answer. Teach 
us to pray for strength, for health, knowing in 
very truth that only our own unfaith can keep them 
from us. Teach us to pray, as the flowers pray for 
the sun, or the leaves for the dew, confident that 
he who calls upon the universal love can never call 
in vain. Teach us to pray only for the true and the 
good, in the full knowledge that he who gains the 
faith to command can only do so through losing 
the desire to command aught except the high and 
holy. Teach us that we % are in eternity now ; that 
we are immortal souls this hour ; that all things are 
divine; and that here, even here on earth, we are 
in the holy city of God. 



THE PURE IN HEART 

Do we not place too much stress on externals? 
Are we not too much concerned about the 
rules of convention and too little about the 
rules of brotherly kindness? Do we not think too 
much of the world's opinion of what we do rather 
than of our own soul's opinion? Are not our efforts 
too. much in the line of being respectable .rather than 
righteous? Are we not actuated too much by the 
desire for the world's applause and too little by the 
desire for the applause of the inner voice? 

It is very well to conform to the laws of appear- 
ance; but it is still better to conform to the laws of 
reality. It is well to be guided by the letter; but 
it is better to be impelled by the spirit. It is well 
to respect the rights of others because we fear them ; 
but is is better to respect the rights of others because 
we love them. 

We keep acting from the circumference instead of 
the center. We look at the symbol instead of the 
substance. We judge a man's dress rather than 
his heart. We measure him by his outward accumu- 
lations rather than his inward stores of love and 
truth. We take into consideration his circum- 
stances rather than his character. 

The Christ never said : Blessed are the respect- 
able, blessed are the prosperous, blessed are the self- 
righteous, or blessed are they that are fair in seem- 
ing; but blessed are they that hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed 
are the meek, and blessed are the pure in heart. 



l80 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

Purity! How many have condemned in thy 
name that have had no conception of thy spirit! 
The purity of light, of a dewdrop, of a lily in bloom, 
or of a heart that loves truth- — these reflect the clear 
being of God. , In the starshine, the blue of the 
sky, the air that blows from the summer snow of 
the mountains, the bird song at the dawn, or the 
awakening of a soul, is beheld the quality that the 
Master saw in the pure in heart. Innocent, trustful, 
childlike, thinking no guile, seeing the beautiful and 
good in all things — this is the spirit, fresh and 
wholesome and clean, that sees God mirrored in 
its own pellucid depths. 

The purest thing in all the world is love ; for love 
that is not pure should be called by another name. 
This essence of love, that goes out in good will to 
all mankind, never seeks a selfish or degrading ex- 
pression. Rather is it told in good deeds, in kindly 
words, in the shining eye, the tender smile and in a 
charity that covers the faults of all about. Perfect 
love, truth and faith are the fires that refine every 
nature they touch. 

Beware of purity, so called, that ever finds flaws 
in others, that sees the impure or imagines it, that 
blackens the name of any human being. .This is 
the holier-than-thou attitude that brought forth al- 
most the only rebuke which ever fell from the 
Master's lips. This is not goodness, but a counter- 
feit. If we are really pure in heart we behold the 
pure in all things. 

We see that which we are. Whatever we hold 
within ourselves we find reflected hack to us from 
others. If we are dishonest we ascribe dishonest 
motives to our fellows. If we are false, we find 
them false. If we are unjust, we discover them 



THE PURE IN HEART l8l 

to be unjust. If we are impure, we see the impure in 
them. But if we are without guile, no stain of 
guile in them will come to cloud our vision. 

In the last analysis we make our own world. To 
him that is in the Christ consciousness there appears 
the Christlike touch in every man. Every soul that 
turns to Him has a new revelation. All inspire him. 
They shine in upon his vision like blossoms, each 
with its heart of gold and with petals that reflect 
the various hues of the one-light. Some of them 
are crushed, some stunted and dwarfed, because 
they have lacked the sunshine of love; but they are 
flowers still, that in God's own time shall grow tall 
and straight and beautiful, and shall blow freely 
and fully, giving out their aroma in the univer- 
sal air. 

Do you love the flowers ? They are the symbols 
of the souls of men and women. Then love the 
souls. Cast you no shadow on any. Blight not 
their growth by an unkind thought or word. Give 
them the sunshine of your love, the dew of your 
sympathy. And if you can do nothing else for 
them, let them alone. Do not bend and crush them 
awry by trying to force them to grow your way. 
Remember, the flower needs freedom and air. 
Water it, cut away the noxious weeds of circum- 
stance from around it, improve its environment, 
give it a chance, and its own God-implanted life will 
do the rest. 

To the soul that is in the Christ consciousness all 
things are divine. Each thing, rightly understood 
and rightly used, is holy. All days are sacred, all 
places are temples, all human beings are sons of 
God, and all books have some inspiration from on 
high. He sees the great central truths of all re- 



l82 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

ligions, the God-led march of events in all history. 
To him there is a choir in every brook, a priest in 
every tree, an altar on every rock and an oracle on 
every hill. To him each dawn is like the unfolding 
scroll of heaven, each day like a segment of Eternity, 
each eve like a benediction. He beholds in all 
things the One-Life. The grass that is a carpet for 
his feet, or a cushion for his repose; bees that hum 
a minor chord to his musings ; birds that sing for the 
pure joy of simply being; sunlight that shimmers 
upon the leaves; sheep in the meadows and cattle 
on the hills; and everywhere the signs of the labor 
and communion of men; in these he beholds the 
objective expression of the Soul of Things. He 
knows the immortality of all that is, lives in it con- 
sciously in his every moment. He beholds the uni- 
versality of every entity, the unity that runs 
through the fabric of being. To him all manifesta- 
tion is the symbol of spirit. The universal love 
burns within him like a fire. He is in the thought 
of the soul which is faith, and which not only be- 
lieves, but knows. The veil between the seen and 
the unseen to him is very thin; and he grasps the 
hands of beings in both worlds. All he touches 
love him, for he loves them in return. He has no 
personal desire except to do good and scatter happi- 
ness. His individual will he keeps in concord with 
the will universal. He does not believe in God, 
but knows Him, for he has walked with Him upon 
the heights and talked with Him in the Silence. 

The soul that is in the Christ consciousness goes 
out to all the great teachers of the past and strikes 
hands with them in the present. He sees the ladder 
up which he has risen and the ineffable light that 
glows over it from ahead. He knows that he has 



THE PURE IN HEART 183 

come into his own universal, and so has become 
an individual expression of all that is, the micro- 
cosm of the macrocosm. He rejoices that this is for 
every other spirit and would help each to come into 
its own. He steps upon the mountain top of thought 
and the very infinitude of the view humbles him. 
He becomes as impersonal as truth, as democratic 
as light. If he could take all the children of men 
into the arms of his love he would, for his heart 
yearns over them with an ineffable tenderness. 

To the soul that is in the Christ consciousness 
all things are pure. He sees no mistakes in the 
handiwork of God. He beholds the relative and 
partial views of men as things that grow into the 
perfect unfoldment. He sees all truth in beautiful 
symbols, but behind the symbols is the ice-clear, 
pellucid and universal light. He sees the way of 
life that leads up to a throne with a sunburst around 
it; and in symbol* he mounts up to that very throne 
till, he merges into the golden clouds that fold it. 

To the soul that is in the Christ consciousness 
there is joy — joy that bubbles up like a fountain, 
everlasting, unspeakable. Doubt has fled from 
him, for he knows. Whatever may be the inci- 
dents of life, his joy and love and faith can never 
leave him. They would attend him through the 
prison, would stand undaunted with him on the 
scaffold and would shine triumphant even over the 
misunderstandings and hatred of men. They are a 
light to his steps, a strength to his sinews and a 
song in his heart. 

The soul that is in the Christ consciousness has 
overcome, and for him is the promise : "I will be 
his God and he shall be My son." 



WALKING IN THE LIGHT 

One step at a time! That is as far as we are 
given to see. Yet we walk in the light. What 
may be the fiftieth step ahead is hidden from 
us; but we do not have to take that fiftieth step 
until we reach it. The immediate step is plain. 
When that is taken, the next will be plain. Why 
torture ourselves thinking of the future ? It will be 
bright when we arrive. How must we go now? 
That is what concerns us. There is a voice within 
that tells us the way. So long as we follow that 
we shall never lose the path. 

Perhaps God has called us to a distant field. Old 
ties must be broken, ties that bind very closely upon 
our hearts. Old friends must be left, friends that 
are very dear to us. The old work that we loved 
must be left to others. The old associations seem 
reproaching us that we are deserting them. The 
little home, that has grown into the very fiber of 
our beings, we must press its threshold no more. 
The familiar trees and hills hold out mute hands to 
us. We turn to face a future we know not. We 
point our feet to a distance we can see not. We 
only know that God's impulse in the soul spurs us 
on. We only see that step by step is made plain. 
We go from the love of friends, but the love of 
God enfolds us. We go toward the darkness, but 
the light of God surrounds us. Our hearts are filled 
with misgivings, but the faith of God sustains us. 
Our eyes are blinded by tears and we falter and 
stumble in the path, but the hand of God upholds us. 



• WALKING IN THE LIGHT 185 

Ours not to question, ours not to repine, ours only 
to walk forward in the light in the way where lies 
the Father's work. 

Walking in the light! If our souls are awake, 
we always must walk in the light. We were blind 
before that awakening, but now we see. We look 
up and the eternal radiance pours over us. We 
know that so long as we are thus illumined we 
cannot go far astray. The darkness recedes, as we 
approach it. The circle of light ever goes before 
our feet. Why pine to know the distant event? 
The present scene is enchanting. God's present 
blessing is over us. Why not trust Him to lead us 
all the way? If we abide in Him, harm cannot 
come nigh unto us. Whatever the event may be, 
in the consciousness of Him we can rise above it. 
If we follow where He would have us go, light 
and love will go with us all the days of our lives. 
He will make our burdens light and our way joy- 
ous. Rest in Him. Make of His love a pillow 
in the night, an inspiration in the day. He will ever 
give you strength for the present need. He will 
ever give you light for the present step. 

He who would have clearness of vision must have 
purity of life. Falsehood clouds the soul. False 
relations engender a mist before the eyes. We must 
be true, if we would see the truth. We must be 
pure in heart, if we would perceive God. We must 
follow the path, if we expect light to be given us 
to see the path. Only as we advance are we shown 
the way to farther advancement. Only by doing 
the present work fully and conscientiously are we 
given to see the larger work that lies beyond. We 
must only have faith, utter faith, that if we are 
doing God's will, He will reveal to us whither we 



l86 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

are to go. If we are but faithful to the trust, in 
ways that we wot not of, ways that are sweet with 
surprise, the next trust will be shown to us. Only 
as we go toward the light we now behold will the 
farther light appear. Step by step up the shining 
pathway of service! Walking in the light J Walk- 
ing in the light! 

Sometimes the way seems hard. At the very 
crucial point in the journey, doubts and uncertainty 
are round about us. There on the mountain alone 
are we tried, tried till we grow strong enough for 
the way that is before. Sometimes the light seems 
to disappear. We are promised that it will return, 
but so long is it withheld that we grow wild with 
the delay. A spirit of rebellion is in our hearts. 
We seem deserted at the very time we think we 
most need help. We do not understand. We are 
being tested, tried till our faith grows equal to the 
task we are yet to do. Then at the very hour when 
the way seems darkest, like a revelation comes the 
light. We go forward strengthened, fortified, with 
a trust that will not faint at the next dark angle 
in the road. 

The children of light! These are they who are 
born of the spirit. These are they whose souls no 
longer sleep within them. These are they who can 
say in very truth: "One thing I know: That 
whereas I was blind, now I see." These are they 
that perceiving the light follow it; and as they fol- 
low, more light appears. These are they that ask 
not to behold the distant view, but trust God to 
show them a step at a time. 

Some there are who place their dependence alone 
on the rushlight of the intellect. Even the rush- 
light is better than the darkness; but it is itself as 



WALKING IN THE LIGHT 187 

the darkness when it fades in the presence of the 
spiritual sunlight. The chief trouble with the rush- 
lights is that every man thinks his own little glow 
the only one. But they who see truly by the 
spiritual sunlight come into unity of vision. 

There are many pitfalls along the path ; and they 
that travel without the Light — the Light with a 
capital L — are in danger of getting ditched before 
their journey is half over. We have all heard of 
the blind that lead the other blind into the gutter. 
And if we are not blind ourselves we perceive that 
very thing going on all about us. It hurts to look 
at it — almost as much as it does to tumble; but it 
is bound to go on until people get their eyes open. 
Then they will see that there is a path — straight 
and narrow it may be, but well defined— that leads 
safely past all the pitfalls. They will also see, if 
their feet touch this path that they may walk in the 
light. 

We can help each other. For the soul that really 
sees becomes radiative. He has a light of his own 
and can show some brother the way. Blessed is he 
if he hide not that light. Blessed is he if he use it 
not all for self. Blessed is he if he let it shine, so 
that it may become a beacon to souls that stumble 
in the dark. Blessed is he that walks in the light 
and brings others to walk in the light. 



THE THOUGHT OF THE SOUL 

ove, faith and truth! These constitute the trin- 
19 ity that, working- through the souls of men, is 
to give us a sweeter, saner, more divine hu- 
manity. 

Faith is more than mere intellectual assent, more 
than belief. It is the intuition of the soul, that per- 
ceives and knows. It is an internal reminiscence of 
home, an awareness of God, a consciousness of the 
All-Life. 

Its trust is as beautiful as that of a child who 
has never been deceived; and it has the added as- 
surance that it never can be deceived ; for the Uni- 
verse is utterly true. Faith cannot be deluded, if it is 
placed in universals and not in particulars. If there 
is any seeming inadequacy it is in us and not in 
the Soul of Things. 

. He who leaves his case unreservedly in the hands 
of the Father will never so leave it in vain. Every 
prayer that is sincere and unselfish and that has one 
scintilla of faith behind it is answered. The answer 
may not be all we had dreamed, but it is all that 
our own attitude will permit it to be. 

It is faith that sustains the fabric of society, that 
carries souls over the dark places of life, that up- 
holds us in the valley of shadow-. It dries the tears 
of those that mourn, puts hope in the hearts of the 
despondent and lightens the burden of those that 
labor and are heavy laden. 

The soul that trusts in the Father shall walk in 
the light; for every step will be shown him before 
it is taken. 



THE THOUGHT OF THE SOUL 189 

To him that lays down his own will utterly that 
he may do the universal will shall come a joy of 
service in every day of his life, and every day shall 
be a new day to him, with a beauty and a revelation 
of its own; and every duty shall be a happiness be- 
cause he works in love. Responsibility shall rest 
lightly upon him, for he shall cast his burdens upon 
the Lord. He shall not have worry over the mor- 
row, for he shall know that the Lord will care for 
His own. Since he does the universal work, he 
shall trust in the universal to guide and sustain him. 
He lives not unto himself, but for all ; that he may 
render service unto all; that his life may be given 
for God and Humanity in a perfect labor of love. 

The soul that does the universal work must do it 
in faith; he must not be disheartened if none comes 
to hear him ; he must not be cast down if he sees no 
result of his effort; he must only be certain that he is 
true to truth, that he is pure in heart, that he has 
given up self utterly for the service of the All-Life. 
He must only know that the seed he sows is good, 
and trust God for the harvest. 

There is a faith that knows, that knows because 
it is conscious. It knows the Christ because it is 
conscious of Him. It knows the life that is in all 
things because conscious of that life. It knows im- 
mortality because it is conscious of the immortal. 
It knows that it is the substance behind all mani- 
festation, the unseen that is bodied forth in the seen, 
the spirit behind the symbol, the knower back of 
the known and the knowing of it, the sub-conscious 
that awakens to life more and more from mineral 
to man, the force that can remove mountains, that 
can banish disease, that can do all things in the name 
of the divine. 



1 90 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

He only can truly touch this faith who has 
touched the consciousness of the All-Life. Then 
his spirit is awake within him and he acts in accord 
with its direction. He has dropped a plummet into 
his own being and found God. He is aware that no 
life is alien to him. The desire for transgression 
has departed from him, for he feels that the way 
of life lies in being utterly true. He has come to 
reconcile flesh and spirit that both may dwell 
together in peace and righteousness. He hears God 
in the still small voice, and he would obey it ever, 
for he knows that only in perfect obedience is per- 
fect freedom. 

Faith reaches up through the darkness to grasp a 
hand that it knows will lead it to. the light. It weeps 
not over seeming separation, for it knows that there 
is no loss. It follows confidently the path into the 
midnight, for it knows that God is there as well as in 
the noon. It is without fear, for it realizes that 
there is nothing in all the universe of which to be 
afraid, except its own delusion. " 

Faith walks through the door called death with 
unfaltering tread, for it is conscious that the spirit 
is superior to all change. 

Faith is the thought of the soul. It does not 
contend. It states. It does not reach knowledge 
by laboring processes. It perceives. It does not 
rest upon authority. It is its own authority. It 
rises triumphant over doubt, passes by the bickering 
of sects as the prattle of children that do not under- 
stand, and rests at last with perfect content in the 
sense of Eternal Good. 

Faith is the measure of the soul-consciousness. 
The more a man is awake within, the more can he 
trust. 



THE THOUGHT OF THE SOUL I9I 

The Master stated the law "As your faith is so 
be it unto you;" and "Thv faith hath made thee 
whole." Genuine faith can never do less than make 
whole. The thing we most need is to let go and 
trust God. When we give all we gain all. 

There is a profound meaning under the admoni- 
tion, "Take no thought of the morrow." It means 
giving up and trusting. 

We only do things as we have faith that we can 
do them. He who says, "I will," with perfect as- 
surance, already has his work half accomplished, 
for he has expressed faith. He is most self-reliant 
because he most relies on God. 

Words are all inadequate to tell of the sweetness 
and power of faith. At best they are but sign- 
boards that point the way. To him that has the 
quality within him they are not needed. To him 
that has it not, they at best can but help to awaken 
the soul. 

Truth is always positive. It is belief, not doubt, 
that accomplishes results. Belief is construction; 
doubt is destruction. It is faith that has made men 
great — faith in themselves, faith in their ideals, faith 
in their power to do things, faith in the future, faith 
in the race, faith in God. 

Hope and love are positive qualities; fear and 
hatred are their negatives. Hope and love make 
men brave and good; fear and hate cause them to 
be cowardly and mean. 

These principles run through all life. The opti- 
mist is positive, the pessimist negative. The man 
who builds is positive. The man who tears down 
is negative. He who wantonly destroys is the dis- 
ciple of negation. Aye, you say, but there have 
been iconoclasts who have done good. True; but 



192 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

it was those who broke the images of to-day that 
they might erect the larger faith of to-morrow. They 
were constructive, just as is the man who tears 
down the one-story shack that he may erect in its 
place a skyscraper. 

Negation means nothingness. It is cynical. It 
seeks to belittle the efforts of others. It denies; and 
to be in keeping it must deny the good, for evil itself 
is negative. A negationist, if true to his creed, 
cannot believe in a principle or die for a cause, for 
these are positive things. 

Negation palsies all efforts, for if a man believes 
in nothing, why should he strive? There is no 
hope of the future, either as to the individual or 
as to society. What is the use of working when 
it all comes to naught? For work itself is positive. 
Supreme inaction is the only thing that comports 
with the negative theory. 

The atheist, the anarchist and the pessimist are 
all negationists. One says there is no God, another 
that there is no law, another that there is no good. 
One would tear down the churches, another would 
tear down the government, and another would tear 
down man's faith in himself. And they would offer 
nothing to take the place of what they destroyed. 
They would demolish the cosmos and leave chaos in 
its place. Not only chaos, but annihilation ; for that 
is the logical end of their doctrine. 

In the realm erf ethics, morality, righteousness, 
self-control, regard for the rights of others are all 
positive qualities. Im (no) morality, un (no) 
righteousness, un (no) control, dis (no) regard 
for others' rights — these are the negatives. And 
these lead to the end of all negation- — destruction. 

In a yet larger sense, spirituality is positive, ma- 



THE THOUGHT OF THE SOUL I93 

terialism is negative. For God is the positive pole 
of the universe; matter the negative pole. And if 
we put our faith in this negative, that is the very 
apex of all negation. 

Reality is positive ; unreality negative. In the ul- 
timate sense, spirit is the reality, matter the un- 
reality of being. This is the final statement of the 
positive philosophy. To the man besotted in ma- 
terialism this may seem hard to understand. To 
the man who sees with the eye of the soul, the 
truth is at once apparent. 

Christ was the very embodiment of the positive 
idea. His faith was boundless. He believed it 
could remove mountains, could calm storms, could 
heal the sick, could raise the dead. He believed 
in all things that are positive — love, hope, goodness, 
truth, right, spirituality, God. 

It is all of a piece. Negation in one thing leads 
to negation in all. The murderer is a negationist, 
for he seeks to annihilate life. The criminal is a 
negationist, for he expresses by his deeds his dis- 
belief in morality. The man who will not work is 
a negationist, for his attitude is a denial of action. 

What the world needs is men who are positive, 
men who believe, who love, who act; men who are 
constructive reformers. 

Quit getting out with your hammers and seeking 
to destroy reputations, ideals, hopes, faiths ; at least, 
unless you intend to offer something better in their 
place. 

There is something wrong with the learning that 
makes men doubt. It is on the surface and does 
not reach into the depths of things. 

There is no doubt in the movements of the uni- 
verse, no faltering, no lack of confidence anywhere. 



194 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 



All is positive — motion throughout all the systems, 
all the world, all the atoms. 

Let this our prayer be : "God give me faith, even 
as a little child, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven/ ' 



THE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH 

Fear has no place in the awakened soul. It is a 
mist that vanishes before the rising of the 
spiritual sun. It is a discord that is swallowed 
up when the individual comes into harmony with 
the universal. 

Fear, like doubt, destruction and death, is a nega- 
tion; and the spirit knows no such thing. In the 
spiritual there is nothing but positive. There is 
only truth, error is unknown; there is only light, 
darkness never appears; there is only God, evil is 
utterly apart from that realm. 

Fear, doubt, discord, disease, our concept of 
death, error, wrong, all these things grow out of 
our false idea of self, our sense that we are separate 
and apart from God and all His creation. This 
concept is a negation in itself and as a direct result 
produces all these other negations. 

When the soul begins to awaken to its oneness 
with God, these evils which have grown out of a 
false conception of self, begin to vanish away; and 
the more the soul awakens, the fainter their hold 
upon it. Any falsehood is necessarily unreal. In 
other words it has no existence. But so long as we 
do dwell among negations, so long" they seem to us 
to have a real being. It is only by taking hold of 
realities that we become free. 

Where is there anything of which to be afraid? 
Poverty?. It cannot affect the soul. It is an ex- 
ternal thing and the soul rises superior to it. The 
greatest of the earth have been poor. Homer, 



196 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

Socrates, Galileo, Luther, Burns, Shelley, Spencer 
and most of the world's great writers, teachers and 
prophets have had no material possessions. Even 
Jesus had not where to lay His head. Poverty is 
not an evil. It has been a breeding ground of 
genius through all the ages. There is nothing here 
to fear. 

Death? To the soul that has come into the new 
and wider consciousness death becomes only the 
ending of a manifestation. No real life is in any 
way affected by it. Such a soul is aware of its own 
immortality. It knows that nothing which has real 
existence can die. It is only the manifestation, the 
expression, the symbol, which ceases to be. The 
causal self, the pure being, continues through all 
outward changes. It no more ends with the body, 
which is its expression, than the mind ends with the 
ending of any given word, which is its expression. 
The soul that has come into the awareness of God's 
inward presence, lives in conscious immortality and 
has heaven within itself. To that soul death is only 
a change of the mode of expression, that is all. In- 
stead of being a thing to be feared it is rather to 
be welcomed as a necessary step in growth and as a 
coming nearer to the light, the love and the good- 
ness of God. 

So what is there to fear ? That some one will do 
you an injury? He can do you no real injury. He 
may strike at external things that for the time be- 
long to you. What of it? They are not a part of 
you and their loss takes nothing from you. A man's 
own self is the only being he can injure — in a real 
sense. Your own attitude of mind is the thing that 
hurts you, if any hurt comes. Others may do you 
wrong, but so long as you remain sweet and great 



THE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH 197 

through it all, you gain rather than lose by the at- 
tempted injustice. 

What is there to fear? Nothing but the shapes 
conjured up in your own imagination. Nothing but 
your failure to live up to your real self. No one 
can harm you. You are master of your own life. 
There is infinite progress ahead of you. It is for 
you to decide if you will go on to its glories. You 
are immortal. All things that are yours must come 
to you. What have you to fear ? Seek first the 
kingdom of God, which you will find in the awaken- 
ing of your soul. After you have found that king- 
dom all things needful will be added unto you. 

The discovery of this one simple truth is the pearl 
of great price. Men have theorized and speculated 
about it through all the centuries, when the thing 
itself was within their very reach. It does not need 
profundity and intellectual training to grasp it. 
The faith of a little child will apprehend and take 
hold of it as readily as the learning of the sage — 
in some cases more readily, for much of the sage's 
learning may be false learning, while the intuition 
of the child's soul is true. 

Men talk about finding God in nature, in books, 
in what other men have said, in systems, or insti- 
tutions or creeds. They cannot so find Him. The 
place to look for God is in the temple of your own 
soul. If you find Him there, then you will find 
Him everywhere. You will see Him. in the trees, 
hear Him in the birds, read Him in books, detect 
Him in your fellows, feel Him in all life. But you 
discover Him outside of yourself, because you first 
discover Him inside. The youth who has awakened 
to the miracle of love sees a more beautiful uni- 
verse than he had ever dreamed before. So the soul 



iq8 glimpses of the real 

that has awakened to God's love sees that love re- 
flected everywhere. 

What have you to fear? Nothing but your own 
sin and delusion. Nothing but your own failure 
to come into your divine heritage. You are your 
own fate, your own devil, your own undoer. Rise 
out of your false selfism and into harmony with the 
universal love and light. You will find that life 
is fuller of hope, of joy, of harmony, of glory and 
of eternal growth than you had ever dreamed. 

When an Adventist once approached Ralph 
Waldo Emerson with the cheerful information that 
the world would soon end, the Concord sage re- 
plied : "No matter. We can do very well without 
it." That would strike a materialist into spasms. 
He has an idea, or he thinks he has, that this little 
ball of mud and rock is all there is and that mind 
and soul depend on it for their being. 

There is not a man or woman on the earth that 
does not intuitively, sub-consciously know better. 
Men in the shock of battle are wiser, for in these 
crises the soul rises uppermost and laughs at death. 
The body and the bodily senses shrink from dissolu- 
tion, but the real man within has no fear. He knows 
that it is but another expression ended, another 
word spoken, another house vacated. Perhaps he 
even exults in the new freedom he is to gain. 

Those who have brought this sense-consciousness 
and soul-consciousness into harmony, so that they 
are aware of being on both planes, have no more 
doubt of life after death than they have of life now. 
They know that there is nothing but life, that all 
that is is immortal, that death is but an appearance, 
a change of form, of function, of manifestation. 

All things are good. Man's relation to them may 



THE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH I99 

not be good, he may not use them in the best way. 
If so, the fault lies with him, not with them. We 
have absolutely nothing to fear outside of our- 
selves. Fear is the falsest sentiment in the human 
mind. In this universe of good, there is nothing 
to hurt us. Everything is friendly to us if we permit 
it to be so. Someone else may take something that 
we have, place, possessions, or even reputation. 
Some animal may take our bodies for food. But 
they cannot take anything that we are. We can 
serenely smile at the seeming loss of to-day, know- 
ing that it will be exactly repaid later. Our own 
attitude is the only thing that can injure us. If 
that remains sweet, serene and triumphant through- 
out all that may befall us, circumstances lose their 
power on us and we are kings over death. 

We need the confident faith of Emerson, so that 
if one comes to us and says, "You will lose your 
body tonight," we can reply, "No matter. I can 
do very well without it." 

We make the mistake of regarding manifestations 
as real entities. They are not. They are but the 
expressions of entities. A particular combination 
is to-day, and to-morrow is not; but nothing has 
passed out of being; the combination merely has 
changed. My body is an expression, a word spoken 
by my soul. When the word is given utterance it 
ceases to be, but the speaker lives on. This truth 
you know within your inmost being, for there is the 
eternal witness. You have no need that anyone 
else tell you, except to remind you of knowledge 
you already possess, except to awaken you to the 
consciousness lodged in your own heart. 

We are in the habit of looking at things inverted. 
We are not bodies possessing souls, but souls pos- 



200 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

sessing bodies. We should take our stand on the 
immortal rather than the evanescent side of -our 
being. You can never lose anything that you are; 
and if you are conscious on the soul plane you can 
never cease to be conscious. We must distinguish 
between being and having. We can only lose the 
things we have. The I am of us is never lost. If 
you are awake and conscious you will be conscious 
forever. Death will not even be a break to you. 
You will have triumphed over death and gained 
heaven here on earth. You are heaven in yourself, 
when you know. The voice of the spirit speaks to 
you always, if you are but listening. This is the 
comforter that leads you into all truth. You cannot 
get it by a form or a ceremony, not even by your 
manner of living. You can only get it by being 
conscious on the soul plane. This is the new birth 
spoken of by the Master. All the truths He enun- 
ciated are very simple when we come to under- 
stand. They are just as natural and rational as 
mathematics or chemistry. He did not talk at 
random. He talked of things concerning which he 
knew. There is no mystery, flubdub, or large- 
sounding pretense about all this, no fakery, or occult 
fuss and feathers. It is simply the science of the 
soul, the conscious awareness of real being, the 
awakening unto the knowledge of things that do 
not pass away. This awakening may come on 
earth. You need not wait for death. Cease being 
subject to death, either through fear or hope. Death 
has no real power over you. Come into your own 
now. It is for you. Open your soul to the voice of 
the Spirit of Truth. Thenceforth doubt will melt 
away from you as frost melts from the summer sun. 



THE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH 201 

This is not mere religion. It is the real thing; and 
the term is not used in any flippant sense. 

When the soul arises above the desire for the 
things of the sense, the circumstances and disap- 
pointments of life no longer exercise dominion over 
it and it is ready to enter into the glorious rest of 
God. It can enter this rest to-day, for we are 
living now as much as we ever shall live. 

There is such a thing as faith that is knowledge, 
soul-knowledge. There is such a thing as con- 
sciously perceiving the reality behind the seeming. 
This is not done with the physical senses, for it is 
not in the physical realm. It is a spiritual insight, 
an inward awareness. It is the presence of God 
in the soul of man, irradiating all with divine per- 
ception. In this presence the fear of death flees 
as a shadow of the night flees from the face of 
dawn. Everything melts away except the one over- 
whelming love of the Father, the All of Life. Spe- 
cial loves are not lost but are fused in a universal 
kindliness. There comes a pervading sense of the 
oneness of being, a veritable cosmic consciousness. 
Truth dawns like a revelation. There is a clear 
vision of things, a receptive attitude of soul, a 
serene confidence in the right. We come to love the 
earth in a new way, as the symbol, the expression, 
the manifestation of the reality behind. We no 
longer unduly exalt it, or intemperately condemn 
it. We see its place and relation and that in such 
place and relation it is good. We perceive that all 
things are divine, in their orderly use. We cease 
to condemn the wrongdoer, but have compassion on 
him, as on the child who does not understand. 

And we lose fear. We perceive that there is 
nothing to make us afraid. Having no desire but 



202 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL 

for the good of all, living in the perfect law of love, 
hatred and all negations lose their power upon us. 
Death no longer seems a forbidding wall, but a 
golden gate into a sunnier country. 



Other Books by J. A. Edgerton 

Voices of the Morning: 

Containing over fifty poems of the New 
Time. Bound in cloth, gilt back and top, 12 
iTio., 121 pages. Price, 75 cents. 

B. O. Flower in the Coming Age: 

"This young poet of the Western plains seems to me to have 
caught the spirit of the prophet voices who have been an inspira- 
tion to the toilers throughout the generations of the past. 
* * * He has caught the spirit of our loved friend, James 
G. Clark, so perfectlv that it seems that the poet's mantle, as 
well as his broad, loving and tender spirit, had fallen on the 
young man who has taken up the song where the silver-haired 
sage left off. * * * Our poet is nothing if not genuine, and 
his love for the hard-working people, whose lives at best are 
very barren, amounts almost to a passion." 



Songs of the People: 

Containing 119 poems of Mr. Edgerton's 
latest and best work, handsomely bound in 
cloth, 12 mo., 221 pages. Price, $1.00. 

Wm. J. Bryan: "There is a healthy optimism and a broad 
humanity running through these pieces, and the sentiment is 
often expressed with force and eloquence. I am glad 'The 
Penalty' is included, for I think it is one of the best things 
Mr. Edgerton has written. I have reproduced it in 'The Com- 
moner, Condensed,' and in the introduction have made a com- 
plimentary reference to it." 

In his paper, The Commoner, Mr. Bryan also says: "Mr. 
Edgerton is a poet whose genius has largely been employed in 
the advocacy of governmental reforms. A refreshing spirit of 
optimism runs through his writings, and political truths are pre- 
sented with gracefuness as well as emphasis. While his political 
poems have been more widely quoted, many odes scarcely less 
meritorious deal with home, childhood and other subjects of uni- 
versal interest." 



Universal Chords: 

Now in press. Contains over seventy of the 
author's latest poems, nearly all in the spiritual 
vein. Handsomely printed and bound in white 
and gold. Price, $1.00. 

The Reed Publishing Company, - Publishers 

DENVER, COLORADO 



JAN 16 1904 



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